Investors are nervous -- about interest rates, commodity prices, inflation, stagflation, you name it -- and the markets are turbulent. After soaring to a five-year closing high on May 5th, the S&P 500 has dropped like a lead balloon. 

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The jury is still out if this is just a short-term correction or the start of a bear market. However, one thing is certain -- given the increasing volatility, income investors would be wise to weatherproof their portfolios with dividend-paying stocks that can stand their ground when the going gets tough.

Amid the latest sell-off, a few solid, high-yield stocks held up especially well. While other stocks swooned to multi-week lows, the lucky six star performers listed below continued to shine. In fact, they did better than hold steady -- they gained an average of +5.8% during some of the roughest days the market has faced so far this year.

Creme de la creme
I started my search for these bulletproof stocks by looking for issues that gained at least +1% when the rest of the market was faltering. In addition, I required a minimum dividend yield of 6%.

So far, so good, but we all know that short-term performance is not a good gauge of a stock's longer-term staying power. I don't want to invest in shooting stars that flame up one day only to burn out the next.

To test their mettle over the long haul, I then subjected these stocks to a battery of tests:

Have they consistently outperformed the S&P 500?
To pass my screen, a stock had to show positive returns on a consistent basis. Since many of the stocks that made it through the first round were recent IPO's (initial public offerings), I gauged their performance on the returns they've delivered so far this year.

The stocks that made it to my final list (see below) have delivered an average +21% return year-to-date, far ahead of the S&P's flat performance or even the Dow Jones Select Dividend Index's somewhat more impressive +2.8%.

Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future success. So I raised the bar once again to ensure that this solid performance was driven by strong fundamentals and positive long-term growth outlooks.

Are share price gains driven by strong fundamentals?
For starters, I reviewed each company's earnings outlook. I required earnings growth of at least +5% this year, next year, and over the next five years. On average, the stocks listed below are expected to boost their earnings at a remarkable average pace of roughly +100% this year. Their growth will continue at an estimated +44% clip in 2007 and maintain a healthy +8% over the next five years.

After running this search through StreetAuthority's advanced scanning software, I managed to uncover six high-quality, dividend-paying stocks with yields of greater than 6%. All six of these firms have held up well amid the market's recent turbulence, and each of these winners is likely to continue to move higher in the coming months. 

The following six firms made the grade . . .

Important Note:  Throughout the remainder of this article, editor Carla Pasternak provides a closer look at some of the top-performing income stocks for today's volatile market environment, one of which sports a dividend yield of 10.4%. However, in order to view the remainder of this article, you'll need to subscribe to our premium income-oriented newsletter -- High-Yield Investing. After you subscribe you'll receive immediate access to this full article, as well as our monthly High-Yield Investing newsletter and a host of additional premium content. Please visit one of the following links to continue...

Good investing!

Carla Pasternak
Editor
High-Yield Investing
http://www.StreetAuthority.com

Carla has been employed in the investment industry for more than two decades. In addition to her work as a writer for several other nationally recognized financial publishers, her previous experience includes a position as President of a well-respected investor relations firm. She has also been writing shareholder reports for public companies (annual reports, speeches, corporate profiles, slide shows, etc.) since 1980.

A highly successful investment analyst, Carla specializes in high-yield, income-paying stocks. In that pursuit, she's always mindful to select companies that not only pay rich dividends, but that also have the potential to deliver strong long-term capital gains.

On the educational front, Carla holds both MBA and Ph.D. degrees. When she's not watching the market, she's teaching business courses at the college level and managing several million dollars in portfolio assets.

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