As much of a blue chip now as it ever was in the past, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has continued to reward its long-term shareholders. Despite some recent gloom hovering over it and other tech stocks, Microsoft's share price has generally managed to rise over the years. In fact, if we look through a nearly 20-year lens, the stock is quite the outperformer.

Let's dial it back to a time when Microsoft, hounded by shareholders for never paying a dividend despite sitting on a monster pile of cash, caved in and declared its first payout in January 2003.

Buying $10,000 worth of the company's stock on the day that first dividend was paid would have nabbed you 421 shares with a bit of change left over. This position would be worth slightly over $100,940.93 today, for a more than tenfold increase.

Continue reading

Source Fool.com