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 Index by 1.7 percentage points. On a long-term basis, however, the model dividend portfolio still trails the index. As of Dec. 31, the portfolio was worth $151,281, representing a total return of about 51.3 per cent from its initial value of $100,000 at inception on Oct. 1, 2017. On an annual basis, that works out to a return of 6.8 per cent, compared with the S&P/TSX Composite Index's annualized total return of 8.1 per cent over the same period.