Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Dividends Still Growing

With all the bad news that came down from Wall Street last week, it's nice to be able to point to a positive development in the stock market world: Dividend growth continues to be strong. At this point, the vast majority of the stocks in the S&P 500 are dividend-payers, with the 409 such companies in that index representing a 14-year high.

And the amount those companies is paying out keeps growing. The first quarter sum of $319.8 billion paid out in dividends surpassed, by nearly 20 percent, the peak from before the financial crisis in 2008-09. Dividends per share for the first quarter grew 15 percent from the previous year.

The S&P 500 has been very strong in recent years, rising by 26 percent over the past 24 months. But its dividends have been even stronger, increasing by 30 percent over that time frame.

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