No Lost Decade If You Bought Dividend Stocks

I recently read an excellent article by Tim McAleenan Jr. in which he discussed how "dead money" isn't really dead if you buy dividend growth stocks. He highlighted some stocks which have had very small capital appreciation over the past 5 years, but when you include the dividends that you were paid the returns were actually fairly decent. It made me think about "The Lost Decade" of 2000-2010 in which the market as a whole basically went nowhere. On Jan 3 2000 the S&P opened at $1,469.25. On December 31st 2010 the S&P closed at $1257.64. That is a drop of 14.4% over ten years. If we extend this "decade" through 2012 we still have not gotten back to where we were at the beginning of 2000. Today, at 1,426.66, we are still down 2.89%. This has led many "experts" to declare that "Buy and Hold is Dead!"... Read more