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: Real estate investment trusts had a 12-month loss of 12.5 per cent but a one-month gain of 7.87 per cent. We saw good November gains from Canadian Apartment Properties REIT, which jumped 13.3 per cent, and Granite REIT, up 8.8 per cent. However, the REIT gains were uneven across the sector. Apartment REITs did best, while office and retail REITs tended to lag. As the calendar turned to December, dividend stocks continued to rally, as the Toronto market jumped almost 217 points Friday. Central bank rate increases have taken their toll, but now it appears the coiled spring has sprung.