The Best Utility Dividend Stock for a Lifetime of Passive Income
Dividend stocks are the all-weather tires of the stock market. They perform well when the sun is shining and keep your portfolio from sliding into the ditch during the inevitable storms that blow through. And these days everyone seems to expect the market will be running into a downpour. Inflation is at 40-year highs, gas prices average $5 a gallon nationally, the Federal Reserve just imposed its largest rate hike in over two decades, and a survey of the nation's chief financial officers says a recession is unavoidable.
Study after study reinforces the idea that dividend stocks outperform non-payers by a wide margin, with a recent survey by JPMorgan Chase finding stocks that initiated and then raised their payouts over a 40-year period between 1972 and 2012 returned an average of 9.5% annually, versus just 1.6% for non-dividend-paying stocks. Similarly, the asset managers at Hartford Funds found dividend-paying stocks contributed 41% to the total return of the S&P 500 going as far back as 1930. Even during the so-called "lost decade" of the 2000s, dividend stocks gained 1.8%.
And with a market crash on so many people's tongues, there's no stock that's been raising its dividend longer than American States Water (NYSE: AWR), a water utility primarily serving Southern California by providing clean water and electricity.
Source Fool.com
