The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that dividend investing is going through a rough patch. The Globe's Ian McGugan writes that for decades, high-yielding dividend stocks made a habit of leaving the broad Canadian market in their dust. Yet the past five years have seen this dividend advantage shrivel. The huge outperformance of high-yield stocks over this long stretch of time offers a powerful argument for dividend investing. Yet the past five years have seen this dividend advantage shrivel. Several prominent dividend stocks -- including BCE, TC Energy and Toronto-Dominion Bank -- are trading at or below where they were prior to the pandemic. Even with dividends included, their performance has been underwhelming. Conventional wisdom blames it on the big rise in interest rates since 2022. However, on paper, a rise in interest rates should hit all stocks. Indeed, financial theory suggests soaring bond yields should hit risky, speculative stocks harder than steady, reliable dividend payers. One disturbing hypothesis is that we are witnessing a long-run sectoral decline. Mr. McGugan thinks it could be that these dividend-spewing businesses are simply running out of natural growth opportunities.