Double-Digit Returns? Meh

THE KIPLINGER DIVIDEND 15 UPDATE

- BY DAVID MILSTEAD

INVESTOR fervor for artificial intelligence keeps making dividend stocks look downright dumpy. Over the past 12 months, the S&P 500 has returned an eye-popping 29.8%, while the Dividend 15, the list of our favorite dividend-paying stocks, returned an average of 13.4%. Just three-Broadcom, Johnson & Johnson and recent addition U.S.

Bancorp-beat the market.

What a world we live in, when a 13% annual return is a middling performance. Of course, much of the story remains the mega-cap Magnificent Seven technology stocks that continue to drive the returns of the S&P 500 and now make up an outsize proportion of this primary measure of the markets. Although five of the seven pay teeny-tiny dividends, the stocks are not on anyone's list of income investments.