As a young investor I followed an aggressive growth strategy. Having narrowly missed the tech bubble bursting, I purchased my first dividend stock on December 11, 2003. I had heard dividend investments were supposed to be safer, but knew very little else about the strategy. I was fortunate enough to accidentally buy enough good dividend stocks to learn the “secret” of dividend investing. It is not necessarily starting with a high-yield investment, but ending up with a high-yield investment. This usually occurs by buying stocks with a moderate yield and a long history of growing dividends and letting time do its job.

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