Don't Join the Capital Gains Cult

Imagine you own a stock that hasn't increased in value in several years; it's a terrible investment, right?  The reality is not so simple.  Research has shown that more than 99% of real, inflation-adjusted wealth is the result of reinvested dividends in boring, profitable companies.  That means that when you look at a stock chart, you are literally seeing a meaningless squiggly line on a piece of graph paper.  The result is that new investors (and sometimes even experienced investors) draw wrong conclusions and bypass great potential investments because they are looking at the wrong data.  To understand why this is the case, and more importantly why it should matter to you, read Don't Join the Capital Gains Cult - Why You Should Focus on Dividends and Total Return - Not Capital Gains.