Company: Genuine Parts Co

Investors are reassured – and companies consider it a point of pride – when executives note an uninterrupted track record for raising dividends. Dividend payments also offer investors a cushion on their investment, increasing the overall returns of the stock. Historically, dividend payments have accounted for more than 40 percent of the S&P 500’s total returns.

It's the basic question when investing in a stock: is it on the way up or will it go down? To answer this question,  Wall Street has developed numerous ways of attempting to predict what will happen, estimating various attributes tied to stock performance in order to determine what the future holds for a company's valuation.