Stocks can be easy income investments

First, stocks are liquid. You can buy and sell a stock at the click of a button. And you can buy as many stocks as you wish. Second, you can buy stocks in a wide array of industries and sectors. You can reduce your risk level by diversifying your holdings.

Third, when you invest in a stock, there is no maintenance or management required. All you need to do is complete a thorough due diligence process, buy the stocks, and monitor their progress.

If the companies consistently execute, the only thing you need to do is sit on your hands, collect your dividend income, and watch those stocks grow. In the short term, investing in stocks can be volatile. However, owning quality stocks has proven to pay off handsomely over the longer term.

If you are a lazy investor and like a hands-off approach, here are three dividend stocks to consider buying and holding for long periods of time.

A lower-risk, dividend-growth stock in the making

Brookfield Asset Management (TSX:BAM) is a stock to contemplate buying and holding for the decades ahead. This business was recently spun out as the asset-management arm of Brookfield Corporation. In essence, it collects capital from large institutions and deploys it into a wide array of alternative assets (everything from real estate to renewables). It collects fees and carried interest for managing this capital.

Right now, BAM has $790 billion of assets under management with $418 billion of fee-bearing capital. In 2022, it added a record $93 billion of assets into its portfolio. That translated into $2.1 billion of distributable earnings. Due to its long-term investment commitments, this business has already locked in a foreseeable approximate 15% annual earnings growth for the next several years.

The company has no debt and over $3 billion of cash. This stock earns a 3.5% dividend yield today. For steady growth and income, this is a perfect long-term dividend stock.