We Prefer Dividends

Article Excerpt

Economic turmoil over the past few months, and the sharp drop in stock prices, have rekindled investor interest in bonds. This is understandable, since bonds provide steady income streams and a guarantee to repay the principal at maturity. However, bond prices will likely fall over the next few years as interest rates inevitably rise again. Big government budget deficits could spur inflation and push up rates, for example. We continue to recommend that you invest only a small portion of your portfolio in bonds and other fixed income instruments. Instead, you should aim to build a diversified portfolio of well-established companies with long histories of rising dividends. As stock prices rose from 2002 to 2008, dividends accounted for an increasingly small amount of overall investment returns. Now, however, dividend yields are again at a level that could provide as much as a third of your overall return. Canada’s big five banks now provide an average dividend yield of around 7%, compared to an average…