Where Have All The Divvies Gone?

Mark Cuban once remarked something to the effect of “stocks that don’t pay dividends are like baseball cards – only worth what you could convince the next guy to pay for them.”

Floyd Norris looks at some statistics on dividend declarations last year:

Will stock investors who like receiving quarterly dividends have better news this year? S&P thinks yes, according to the article:

“The fourth quarter was in no way a good period for dividends, but compared to recent history it marks a significant improvement, and when added to the stabilization in increases, supports our belief that the worst is over for dividends,” said Howard Silverblatt, the senior index analyst at S.& P.

“Standard & Poor’s believes that the dividend recovery will be slow, and that it will take until 2012 to 2013 to return to where we were in 2007 and 2008,” he added.

The dearth of positive dividend news becomes even more vexxing in the context of our zero interest rate environment so let’s hope the rebound in payout increases happens.

Source:

As Dividends Have Fallen, So May They Rise (NYT)