Dividend cuts accelerate
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- July
- 11
Standard & Poor’s said the second quarter was the worst quarter in 18 years for investors depending on dividend income.
A total of 97 of 7,000 publicly owned companies that report dividend information to Standard & Poor’s Dividend Record decreased their dividend during the second quarter. That was 439 percent increase from the 18 companies that decreased their dividend payment a year earlier. The number of companies that increased dividends fell 16.1 percent.
“Companies are very nervous about what the future holds for the economy and markets, and dividends are on the receiving end of that uneasiness,†says Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at Standard & Poor’s.
The dividend cuts have hurt banks and financially companies particularly hard as they deal with the fallout from the credit crunch and a weakening housing market.
Financial companies with a major presence in the lower Hudson Valley that have cut dividends in recent months include Wachovia Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Washington Mutual Inc. MBIA Inc., the Armonk-based bond insurer hobbled by the subprime mortgage crisis, opted to eliminate its dividend entirely.
This entry was posted
on Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 12:44 pm by Jay Loomis.
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Category: Dividend changes
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