How to seek out healthy dividends

John D. Rockefeller once said that the only thing that gave him pleasure was to see his dividends coming in. With our guide to finding the most secure dividends, you could potentially be as happy as Rockefeller.

"Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It's to see my dividends coming in." So said John D Rockefeller and while you might think it reflects a rather narrow view of life, it does highlight the crucial role of the dividend (a proportion of a company's profits paid out to shareholders) when it comes to investing in stocks.

Dividends fell out of fashion in the dotcom years because the emphasis was on capital gains from risky, fast-growing technology firms that ploughed all their earnings back into their business in order to grow more quickly. But post-crash investors have rediscovered the appeal of dividend cheques, not least because dividends can't be fudged they have to be paid with real money. The clamour for less glamourous stocks providing income has resulted in a sharp uptick in the UK five-year average dividend-growth rate to 7%, according to the annual Barclays Capital Equity Gilt Study; overall dividend income in the UK has risen by almost 40% since 2001.

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