Superior Stocks To Fund Your Retirement

The ultimate goal for investing is to fund retirement needs, not build wealth. Retirees are living longer and have more active lives than in the past when many lived retirement years quietly at home. Social Security was designed to supplement personal savings for retirement. Investors need to save for retirement. Corporate stocks have been a major investment because of their record of growth from capital appreciation and dividends. Capital appreciation has provided at least 65% of investment gains. However the investment world has changed in recent years.

The balance of investment gains come from dividends, and they are getting more respect after the track record of measly growth. The best of the dividend payers are the Dividend Aristocrats. 51 S&P 500 companies, along with of a handful of companies not included in the S&P 500 (out of thousands of stocks), qualify. Each company has been raising annual dividends for a minimum of the last 25 years. Many have streaks of 30, 40 or even 50+ years: HCP (HCP), Kimberly-Clark (KMB), Emerson Electric (EMR), McDonald's (MCD), Genuine Parts (GPC), Coca-Cola (KO), Exxon Mobil (XOM), VF Corporation (VFC), Brown-Foreman (BF.B) and Sherwin-Williams (SHW).

Source: Seeking Alpha

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