Dividend stocks can be fantastic investments. The best ones supply a growing stream of passive income and steady stock price appreciation as they increase their earnings. Those two drivers often enable dividend stocks to deliver above-average total returns.

Third, unlike most equities-focused ETFs, the allocation to equities isn't based on dividend yield. As such, the manager isn't forced to buy stocks bunched in high-yield sectors like energy or real estate investment trusts that could underperform for ...