Although Wall Street offers few guarantees, history has consistently shown that dividend stocks stand head and shoulders above their competition.

Back in 2013, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, the wealth management division of banking giant JPMorgan Chase, released a report that compared the annualized performance of publicly traded companies initiating and growing their payouts to companies that didn't offer a dividend. The span of this comparison was 40 years (1972-2012).

According to the report, the annualized return for dividend stocks was 9.5% over four decades. Meanwhile, the non-payers generated a menial 1.6% annualized return over the same timeline. Unsurprisingly, time-tested companies that are profitable on a recurring basis tend to outperform.

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Source Fool.com