The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition that November was the best month for dividend-paying securities since the early days of the pandemic. Guest columnist Gordon Pape writes that these securities are sometimes called the stock market's equivalent to bonds because they tend to react in the same way to movements in interest rates. Last year was the worst for bond investors since the early 1980s. Dividend stocks were also pounded. Conservative portfolios with large positions in "safe" securities such as utilities, pipelines and telcos saw their market values slashed by 12 per cent or more. Now the carnage seems to be over. Although central banks in both the United States and Canada are warning that more rate increases could come if inflation does not return to its target level of 2 per cent, no one seems to believe them. The market thinks rate hikes are over and expects we'll actually see cuts in 2024. In November, the S&P/TSX Capped Utilities Index jumped 6.77 per cent. Gainers included Brookfield Infrastructure, which added an impressive 13.1 per cent in the month; AltaGas, up 7.1 per cent; Hydro One, up 4.9 per cent; Capital Power, ahead 4 per cent; and Canadian Utilities, which gained 3.6 per cent.