Dividends really are the “Rodney Dangerfields” of the investing world—they get no respect!

But they should, because growing dividends are the key to thriving through any market.

And if you roll your dividends back into your portfolio, the power of compounding takes over and delivers the sort of growth that tech fanboys (and girls) can only dream of.

Here’s the proof, from our friends at Hartford Funds.

Hartford looked at the years between 1960 and the end of 2024, which included everything: the inflation of the ’70s, economic crashes in 2001 and 2008 and, of course, the pandemic.

Here’s what they found: if you’d put $10,000 in the S&P 500 in 1960, you would have had $982,072 at the end of the period, based solely on price gains.

That’s not bad: a 9,721% increase.

It shows you why most folks only think about share prices when they invest. After all, with a gain like that, it’s tough to get excited about a dividend that dribbles a few cents your way every quarter.

But here’s the thing: when you reinvest your dividends, the magic of compounding kicks in. The difference is shocking: your $10,000 would have grown to $6,399,429, or more than $5.4 million more than you’d have booked on price gains alone!