Video: End to economic stimulus panics US investors Ours is a bottom-up, fundamental research strategy, supported by a team of more than 25 sector-specialised analysts. We spend a lot of time going through the numbers and meeting with management teams to find the companies that exhibit the characteristics we seek," she said. Ms Hart said that even investors not looking for income should consider dividend-paying stocks. Over the past 87 years, reinvested income has accounted for more than 40pc of the total returns of the S&P 500. Ms Hart said that it was not about looking for 'shoot the lights out" stocks paying extremely high yields, but at the cost of quality. "The best performing stocks over the past 20 years have been those with above average dividend yields and below average payout ratios," she said. Low payout ratio indicates a disciplined use of capital by management. These companies still have ample cash to reinvest for future business growth. In the past, income seekers were confined to the UK stock market. American companies preferred to use surplus cash to buy back shares in order to increase the share price. But now some of the biggest US companies pay a dividend - and many offer a growing dividend payment too. Consumer company Johnson & Johnson, has raised its dividend for 50 consecutive years. This is the fourth biggest holding in Ms Hart's fund.