The stock market has been on a rollercoaster ride this past year, with equities hitting all-time highs and plunging upon tariff and Fed rate announcements, geopolitical events and Fed chair nomination, among other news. If you’re riding out the volatility, dividend investing can be a way to counter the wild market swings and improve your portfolio performance.

Dividend stocks provide two sources of returns: 

• income from dividend payments 
• capital appreciation of the stock price.

Together, these two components form an investment’s total return. Dividends, when reinvested, can boost your total returns over time. Case in point: Over the past 30 years, the total return for the S&P 500 (which includes dividends…