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In July, a Donaldson Capital Management investment policy committee report , "Have Multinational, Dividend-Paying Companies Become the World's Safest Investment?", answered the question unequivocally:“It is becoming clear that high-quality, multinational corporations may now be the safest investments in the world,” the report says. “They have piles of cash; significant free cash flows; modest debt loads; compete in every corner of the world, and charge a price for their services dictated by the market and not decree; pay taxes in every country in which they operate; and return a significant portion of their annual earnings to their shareholders in the form of dividends.”

The U.S. is just not the fastest growing part of the world right now, says Scott Offen, who manages the common stock investments of Fidelity Strategic Dividend & Income Fund. “There are opportunities in multinational corporations in which you're not tied to any one country for growth, and you can drive your overall revenue growth from revenue growth outside America,” he says.

Dividends have been a stock-investing staple for most of the 20th century, before falling out of favor in recent years. Since 1926, dividends accounted for 42 percent of the total returns from stocks, according to research firm Ibbotson Associates.

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