The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that winter is only a few weeks old, but dividend stocks are blossoming again after spending the past couple of years in the cold. The Globe's John Heinzl writes that the drop in bond yields has been dramatic. In the past three months, the yield on government of Canada five-year bonds has declined more than a full percentage point, to about 3.3 per cent. All of this has provided a nice tailwind for dividend stocks in general, and his model Yield Hog Dividend Growth Portfolio in particular. The model portfolio finished 2023 with a total return, including dividends, of 5 per cent. All of that gain came in the fourth quarter as bond yields sank and the portfolio returned 9.8 per cent, beating the S&P/TSX composite by 1.7 percentage points. As a group, the banks tumbled about 20 per cent from last year's peak in February to their lows in late October, as worries about credit losses, slowing loan growth and a possible recession hammered the sector. They then rebounded by nearly 20 per cent in December alone. What is more, all four banks in the model portfolio -- TD Bank, BMO, CIBC and RBC -- raised their dividends when they announced fourth-quarter results.