Dividend Basics

How Dividend Dates Work, And When You Actually Get Paid
Among the subscribers to my Dividend Hunter, there is a wide range of stock market investing experience. From the emails I receive, I know that it is easy for both beginners and more experienced investors to have trouble keeping up with how companies announce dividends and when you’ll see the cash in your brokerage account. […]

Using Compounding To Overcome A Shortfall In Retirement Savings
I believe financial advisers often seem to assume their clients have a time machine. They like to explain that, with enough time, anyone can enjoy a financially secure retirement. For example, if you invest $200 a month every month for 40 years, your account will be worth $1.2 million if stocks gain an average of […]

Buybacks Or Dividend Increases: Which Is Better?
The challenges businesses faced during the pandemic’s early days forced many companies to change their dividend policies. Now, more than four years on from those scary days, it is apparent that many companies will not go back to their pre-COVID dividend practices. Share buybacks have become a more popular way to “return cash to shareholders.” […]

Big Change Coming To Ex-Div Dates – Here’s How To Prepare
Most investors who own dividend-paying stocks are aware of the ex-dividend phenomenon. To receive an upcoming dividend payment, shares must be owned before the stock goes ex-dividend. That’s why you need to be aware of a big change coming to ex-div dates next week. A dividend announcement includes three pieces of information: the amount of […]

Think Your Income Fund’s Dividend Is Dicey? Here’s How To Tell (Instantly)
If you watch cable TV or visit financial websites, you no doubt hear about “overpriced” stocks and funds all the time. A pundit will jump on TV and say something like “Tech is overvalued.” So, by extension, a tech ETF like the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) is overpriced, right? Not so—at least in […]

Where To Find Dividend Growth In 2024
For dividend growth-focused investors, the 2020 coronavirus pandemic-triggered shutdown threw a monkey wrench into dividend income expectations. In response to the shutdown, companies stopped increasing dividends, cut dividend rates, or suspended dividends entirely. Four years after the shutdown, it’s time to see how dividend policies have changed… And where the next big dividend growth opportunities […]