You need to get paid to invest in this market. My favorite form of payment for you is dividends. A lot of good things come from a sound, dividend-centric approach. First, your interests are in alignment with the company—it must pay you, the investor, for buying the stock. Second, there’s a safety net of sorts since the company has to have some cash to pay you that dividend. And third the best dividend payers have a history of consistently increasing their dividend. But maybe the most important reason is that dividend payers tend to have a long track record of being in business through more than a couple of business cycles. That should provide you with some peace of mind in times like these where spending cracks are widening.
