The S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrat Index is a basket of stocks from the S&P 500 that have increased their dividend for at least 25 consecutive years.

Over the past 19 years, the Dividend Aristocrat index outperformed the S&P 500 by nearly 1 percentage point on an annualized basis. Although both indexes provided strong returns, I would not have expected the Dividend Aristocrat index to outperform given its lack of growth-oriented tech companies -- the sort of up-and-coming businesses that have been in vogue over the past several years. 

Data sources: *Periods prior to the launch of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats index (May 2, 2005) use hypothetical backtested performance provided by S&P Global. Data prior to 2012 was provided by Yardeni Research.

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Source Fool.com