High Dividend vs. Low Dividend Mega-cap Stocks

In a previous study, we showed that the average return of high dividend yielding stocks was 13.04% between 1927 and 2009. Dividend stocks beat the overall market by an average of 1.36% per year in that period. These stocks are outperforming the market this year as well.

Since the beginning of this year, the average return of the 20 high dividend yielding S&P500 stocks was 6.09%, beating the SPY by 2.33%. The second group of 20 stocks with lower dividend yields returned 3.29% on average, underperforming both the stocks in the first group and the SPY (Read more about these stocks and our lengthy article here). Here is how high dividend stocks performed this year: