Apple Inc. (AAPL), American Capital Agency Corp. (AGNC): 10 Incredible Dividend Facts You Probably Didn’t Know

5. However, smart dividend investors know that it’s not always about chasing the highest-yielding stocks. In fact, that strategy can often backfire in a big way because high-yielding stocks can sometimes mask low return on equity or a lack of long-term strategy with those hefty dividends. According to CBS MoneyWatch, over the past 60 years, the worst one-year, two-year, and three-year returns for strategies that involved buying solely high-yield stocks resulted in losses of 36.3%, 39.7%, and 33.6%, respectively. Comparatively, for five-year U.S. Treasuries over the same three time periods during the past 60 years, the worst returns were negative 5.1%, negative 1.7%, and positive 1.6%. If anything, this demonstrates once and for all that yield isn’t everything.

6. Dividend payouts today are certainly a lot different than they were at the beginning of last century. As Foolish macroeconomic guru Morgan Housel has noted on multiple occasions, dividend payout ratios today are considerably lower now than they were during the higher-growth periods of the early 1900s. The difference in yield between the two periods within the broad-based S&P 500 as calculated by Robert Shiller is undeniable.

Source: Robert Shiller, Irrational Exuberance.

In 2000, when the dot-com bubble burst, the S&P 500’s yield amounted to just 1.16%. By contrast, in 1932 during the Great Depression, the yield on the S&P 500 jumped to a whopping 9.52%!

7. Dividends have historically played a gigantic role in creating wealth for investors in the United States. In Susanna Kim’s owns words from an ABC News report, “Of the S&P 500′s nominal total return from 1910 to 2010, dividend yield and dividend growth comprised 90 percent [of] returns for stock holders.” I’ve certainly come across differing figures in other reports, but the message is the same: Compounding long-term dividend growth is a key driver of wealth appreciation.

8. Despite what might seem like relatively low yields and a modest payout ratio compared to the early 1900s, a rebounding U.S. economy compounded with the possibility of higher dividend taxes in 2013 created the perfect storm for big corporate dividend payouts in 2012. In fact, not accounting for inflation, last August saw U.S. companies pay out an all-time record $34 billion in cash stipends, according to Barron’s. There’s likely a higher figure out there if adjusted for inflation, but $34 billion is certainly nothing to sneeze at.

9. Dividend breadth — the difference between the number of positive dividend actions in a given year as compared to negative dividend actions — tends to be at its highest immediately following a recession (i.e., the recovery period). According to data from S&P Indices since 1999, dividend breadth hit a low in 2009 of 1.48 when 1,191 companies boosted their dividend and more than 800 reduced their payout. On the other end of the spectrum, 2004 saw dividend breadth hit a high of 37.06. Coming out of the dot-com bubble, 2,298 companies raised their dividend while just 62 saw their payouts fall that year. This may offer even more proof that long-term investing works, because those investors who attempt to try to time the market would likely miss out on the gains associated with these dividend hikes so shortly after the recession.