Dividend Paying Stocks

Thanks to Michael Patzer, who mentioned the Dividend Achievers - a site that lists all US stocks that meet the following criteria:

The Broad Dividend Achievers Index is designed to track the performance of dividend paying companies that meet the "Dividend Achievers™" requirements. To become eligible for inclusion in the Broad Dividend Achievers Index, a company must be incorporated in the United States or its territories, trade on the New York Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ system or the American Stock Exchange, and have increased its annual regular dividend payments for the last 10 or more consecutive years. In addition, Mergent applies certain additional screening criteria to ensure a stocks' liquidity and investibility. The Broad Dividend Achievers Index is calculated using a modified market capitalization weighting methodology.

Index is also available as an ETF on the AMEX, DAA.

The attached chart shows the power of dividends to help you outpeform and continue to increase your investment capital, by weathering a down market. I believe that a key strategy for investing will be to continue to "front run" the Baby Boom generation, which will be looking for sources of increasing income. Companies with rising dividends will be attractive sources of rising income.

Dividends will also help us weather a down period in the markets, which I expect.