While there are countless ways to make money on Wall Street, investing in dividend stocks over the long run tends to be one of the most successful.

Historically, income stocks have run circles around publicly traded companies that don't pay a dividend to their shareholders. Based on the findings of a report from the wealth management division of JPMorgan Chase in 2013, public companies that initiated and grew their payouts over 40 years (1972-2012) averaged an annualized return of 9.5%. By comparison, public companies that didn't offer a payout scraped and clawed their way to a meager annualized return of 1.6% over the same four-decade stretch.

Since companies that pay a regular dividend are usually time-tested, profitable on a recurring basis, and are able to provide investors with transparent long-term growth outlooks, it's really no surprise that they've outperformed non-payers so significantly over the long run.

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Source Fool.com