There is no shortage of strategies to make money on Wall Street. But when push comes to shove, it's tough to top dividend stocks in the return column over long periods.

Last year, Hartford Funds released a report that, in combination with Ned Davis Research, examined the performance of dividend-paying companies relative to non-payers over a half-century (1973-2022). Even though dividend payers were 6% less volatile than the benchmark S&P 500, they delivered a superior 9.18% annualized return over five decades. By comparison, the non-payers generated annualized returns of just 3.95% over the same stretch, with 18% higher volatility than the S&P 500.

The outperformance of income stocks shouldn't come as a surprise. Publicly traded companies that dole out a percentage of their earnings to investors on a regular basis tend to be profitable and time-tested. They're just the type of businesses we'd expect to increase in value over extended periods.

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Source Fool.com