Dividend Stocks as the Best Hedge

"Today is as good a time as ever to invest in dividend-paying stocks." That declaration is from a 15-page report entitled "Total Return Investing: Dividends for an Uncertain World," by Catherine Maniscalco Avery, who in 2007, with more than 20 years' experience as a portfolio manager with such investment firms as Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, founded Catherine Avery Investment Management in New Canaan, Conn.

She has statistics to reinforce her strong belief that it pays to own dividend stocks during times of market corrections or downturns. Since the 1930s, dividends have accounted for 51.5% of the total return (dividends, plus stock-price appreciation) received by investors in the S&P 500, Avery writes. What's more, "since the index was actually down during [two decades] the 1930s and 2000s, dividends were the only source of return during those years."

Source: Baron's

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