How to find good dividend-paying stocks

Fed up with high volatility and low absolute returns, investors are searching for the closest thing in stocks to a sure thing: dividends. To be completely clear, dividends are far from a guarantee, as they can be cut or slashed for any reason. But dividends are still a relatively stable stream of cash for most investors. Stocks that pay a dividend aren't just beating shares of those that don't, but investors going for dividends are enjoying some record-breaking action. Dividend payouts by companies are on track to reach their largest levels ever, says S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Perhaps you're fed up with just reading about how great dividends are, and are tired of missing out and want to get a piece of the action. Keep in mind that even if you're invested in the Standard & Poor's 500, you're still getting dividends. The dividend yield on the S&P 500 is 1.9%. Some investors, though, want to get dividends that are bigger than the market's. And others want to pick individual stocks with large dividends that might stand to increase faster than the dividends paid by most companies do.

Source: USA Today

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