I buy a lot of dividend stocks. I focus on dividends because they have proven to be powerful wealth creators. Over the past 50 years, dividend payers have outperformed the average stock in the S&P 500 — their 9.2% average annual total return beats the 7.7% produced by an equal-weighted S&P 500 index. Dividend growers and initiators have done most of the heavy lifting, posting a 10.2% annual return compared to 6.7% for companies with no change in their dividend policy.
Given the power of dividends, I tend to invest in several dividend stocks each month. However, if I had to choose just one to buy this September, it would be the following. Here’s why.
This post originally appeared at The Motley Fool.