SFI, your view is common and one of the reasons I wrote this article.  I'm also interested in where your stats are from and how you calculated that.  Nonetheless, interest sensitive stocks like utilities & pipelines get hurt pretty badly at times.

The bear market in the spring/summer of 1998 was particularly tough on interest sensitive stocks that were index heavyweights at the time in Canada.  The stocks you listed I bet were hit hard back then.. If memory serves these were also hit hard in 2002.  While dividend paying stocks held up well during the bust of the tech bubble - even making money for a while - eventually that bear market also broadened to hit just about everything (approx Apr through Sep 2002).

If holding these kinds of companies lets you rest easily - great.  But there are tradeoffs in every decision and you need to understand what those are in each case. I just doubt most are able to handle equity-heavy portfolios' ups & downs.