Worried A Stock Market Crash Is Coming? 3 No-Brainer Dividend Stocks You Don't Need to Wait to Buy

The past 16 months has been incredible for stock market investors. Since bottoming out on March 23, 2020, the S&P 500 Index, a great proxy for the U.S. stock market, has gained over 101% in total returns, more than doubling in value over that period. Let me put it another way to stress how wonderful this period has been: Based on the stock market's usual average rate of return, it usually takes eight years to earn that kind of return.