If You Invested $10,000 in Enbridge 5 Years Ago, This Is How Much You Would Have Today

Canadian energy infrastructure giant Enbridge's (NYSE: ENB) share price gains over the past five years don't look too impressive, but they also don't provide the full picture of how its investors have done. That's because the midstream company pays a generous dividend that, at current prices, yields 6.5%. That number changes the math in an important way when you are looking at its overall performance for its shareholders.

If you invested $10,000 in Enbridge five years ago, those shares would be worth roughly $12,700 today. The same investment in the Vanguard Energy ETF (NYSEMKT: VDE) would be worth just $10,750, which makes Enbridge look pretty good. And yet $10,000 put into the S&P 500 Index would be worth around $15,450 today. That makes Enbridge look relatively bad.