"And those dividends really matter. From January 1926 to December 2007, the monthly return from dividends exceeded the monthly return from price appreciation in two of every five months. Over the last 20 years, dividends have provided 39 percent of the total return.

BUT that was the past. Today, the dividend yield is only about 2 percent, compared with the long-run average of more than 4 percent since 1925. Achieving the long-run, inflation-adjusted annual return of 7 percent when starting with dividend yields of only 2 percent is a tough call, especially as earnings per share over that long run have grown more slowly than real gross domestic product, or only about 2 percent a year after inflation."

source:  http://tinyurl.com/2ophsv  NY Times article

Greg