Overview
- Yahoo Finance underscores that focusing on companies and ETFs with steadily rising dividends can turn compounding into meaningful wealth over time.
- Morningstar and Hartford Funds data show dividends made up an average 34% of S&P 500 total returns from 1940 to 2024.
- Hartford Funds attributes roughly 85% of the index’s 1960–2023 total returns to reinvested dividends and compounding.
- Home Depot illustrates the effect: $10,000 invested in early 1990 grew to about $1 million by the end of 2015 with dividends reinvested, while $50,000 would have reached $1 million by 2010.
- The article cautions against chasing high yields with weak fundamentals and urges selecting diversified holdings with sustainable cash flows, disciplined capital allocation and consistent dividend increases.