Top Dividend Paying Stocks 2018-2023

"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago."
— Warren Buffett

"I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years."
— Warren Buffett

These famous quotes from Warren Buffett got us thinking: what if you had "planted an investment seed" in 2018 into a top dividend paying stock, watered the tree through reinvestment of dividends, and held onto it through all the market's volatility for a long-term hold period of five years?

As a way to zero in on "top" dividend payers, we sifted through components of the prominent S&P 500 index — any stock that is a member of this index would certainly be considered among the "top" businesses one can buy. Next, we screened for dividend paying stocks by imposing a minimum 1% dividend yield threshold.

Finally, we calculated the total returns for each dividend paying stock with dividends reinvested from 2018 to 2023 to sort out the 10 top dividend paying stocks resulting from this exercise. Continue below to see the top-dividend-paying-stock results:

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