Investors can earn a profit by buying stock in 2 ways: buy the stock low and sell it for a higher price, and by receiving dividends. While most companies — especially small, growing companies — do not pay a dividend, most large, profitable companies do by necessity, because there is a limit to how large a company can grow, and so the only way to maintain its stock price is by paying a dividend.
However, there are several advantages to stocks paying a dividend over those that don't. Dividend-paying stocks provide a more certain income than what price appreciation alone offers. When the stock market declines, holders of dividend-paying stocks still receive an income, and the dividend helps to maintain the stock price even in a down market. And, often, the dividend plus the capital gains of a dividend-paying stock exceeds the capital gains of many stocks that do not pay a dividend. In fact, dividends have accounted for about 40% of the total return of the stock market since 1928!
Whether a dividend will be paid depends on the profitability of the firm. While a firm does not have to earn profits to pay a dividend, it would generally be a bad decision for an unprofitable firm to pay dividends. And without profits, the future payment of a dividend would be in jeopardy.
The board of directors decides if and when a stock dividend will be paid, and how much. The board will consider the company's financial position, both now and in the future, and the opportunity costs of paying a dividend. If the company can use the money to grow faster, then a dividend should not be paid. But if a company is both large and profitable, then it could pay some portion of its earnings as a dividend, since it becomes more difficult for a large company to grow ever larger. Hence, without the payment of a dividend, investors will shun the stock, since there is little chance to profit from price appreciation, and the stock's price will collapse.
Besides size, the largest factor in considering a dividend payment is the company's common earnings per share (EPS), which is the after-tax income of the company minus the dividends paid to preferred shareholders divided by the number of common shares outstanding.
Earnings Per Share = (Net Profit – Preferred Dividends) / Number of Outstanding Common Shares
If the common earnings per share is high and likely to remain high, and if the company is too large to grow much larger, then the board of directors will probably decide to pay a dividend.
Will the dividend be reliable? The key to answering that question is to look at free cash flow from operations, or in the case of real estate investment trusts, funds from operations. Insufficient cash flow makes it unlikely to continue paying dividends, and when dividends are discontinued, the stock price will decline.
When the board of directors declares a dividend on the declaration date, they also specify the date of record and the payment date. The date of record is the date when a stockholder must be a registered owner of the stock — a holder of record — to receive the dividend. The payment date (aka payable date) is when the dividend is paid — generally about 3 weeks after the date of record.
Because it takes 2 business days after the trade date (T + 2) to settle a stock trade, the date of record determines the ex-dividend date, which is 2 business days earlier. The ex-dividend date is the 1st day in which the stock trades without the recently declared dividend. In newspaper listings, a stock is marked with an x to indicate that it is ex-dividend. An investor who buys the stock during the ex-dividend period will not be entitled to the recently declared dividend. To summarize in chronological order:
The price of the stock increases steadily by the amount of the dividend until the date of record, then drops by the same amount on the ex-dividend date. This happens because investors are willing to pay more if they are expecting to receive the dividend, which offsets the increased price. Moreover, open buy and stop sell orders are also usually reduced by the dividend amount on the ex-dividend date. (On the other hand, if the stock price did not increase before the ex-dividend date, then decline immediately afterward, then investors could make a riskless profit by buying right before the ex dividend date, then selling afterwards.)
The dividend department of the company is responsible for distributing cash and stock dividends, but is also responsible for sending interest payments, stock splits, rights offerings, warrants, and any other special distributions for stockholders or bondholders. The dividend dispersing agent (DDA) is the person responsible for sending the dividends. The DDA sends cash, property or stock dividends to broker-dealers holding the stock in street name or directly to stockholders who possess their shares. However, new shares from stock splits are distributed by the transfer agent rather than the DDA, to the broker-dealer or to the stockholder.
Sometimes the dividend mistakenly goes to an owner previous to the owner of record, usually because even though the security was purchased before the ex-dividend date, the transaction settled after the record date. In this case, a due bill, which is a printed statement showing a buyer's right to the dividend, is sent to the seller's firm for the payment of the dividend.
Although the dollar amounts of dividends are specified by the board of directors, investors often want to know how the dividend compares with other investments. The dividend yield, the annual dollar amount of the dividends divided by the common share price, yields a percentage allowing the investor to compare the stock to other investments, especially if the investor is primarily concerned about current income.
Dividend Yield = Annual Dividends Per Share / Current Stock Price
Example: If a stock pays a $1 quarterly dividend and the current stock price is $160 per share, then:
Dividend Yield = $1 × 4/$160 = $4/$160 = 2.5%
Another concern of investors when considering a dividend-paying stock is whether the company can continue paying the dividend or even increase it over time. Only a highly profitable company can pay dividends over an extended period. A minimally profitable company will probably withhold dividend payments during economic downturns. And a company can only increase the dividend if its earnings grow. The dividend payout ratio, which is the dividend per share divided by the common earnings per share, is a good indicator of whether a company can continue to pay the dividend or even increase it in the future.
Dividend Payout Ratio = Annual Dividends Per Share / Common Earnings Per Share
For example, if a company earns $8 per share and pays $1 per share quarterly as a dividend, then its:
Dividend Payout Ratio = 1 × 4/8 = 4/8 = 50%.
If a company's dividend payout ratio exceeds 60%, especially over a long time period, it will probably not increase its dividend for the foreseeable future, and it may have to lower it or even suspend it in hard economic times because most of its earnings are being paid out as dividends.
Dividends have 2 common forms. Cash dividends are dividends paid in cash, and are the most common type of dividend. Stock dividends are paid in extra shares of stock instead of cash. Sometimes, however, a company will distribute a different type of dividend, such as the stock of a spin-off company.
Whether the dividend is paid as cash or as stock, the payment of a dividend reduces the price per share of the company. If the dividend is paid as cash, then the company will have less cash, reducing its value, and, therefore, its value per share. If the dividend is paid as stock, then there are more shares outstanding, but the value of the company has not increased; therefore, the company's value per share is reduced. For example, if a company pays a 10% stock dividend, then it will distribute 1 share of stock for every 10 shares owned by holders of record, and the total number of outstanding shares will also increase by 10%. However, the main advantage of a stock dividend for the company is that the retained earnings can all be reinvested for greater growth. The main advantage of a stock dividend for the stockholder is that no taxes have to be paid on the stock dividend until the shares are sold.
Dividends are subject to double taxation. The corporation must pay taxes on the income used to pay dividends and the shareholders must pay taxes on cash dividends. There is no tax due on stock dividends until they are sold.
Dividends were originally taxed as ordinary income, but the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 lowered the tax to 0% for stockholders in the lowest 2 tax brackets and 15% for the higher tax brackets except the top bracket, which is 20%.
Many large corporations provide dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs) for their stock. These programs allow investors to buy company shares directly from the company, without any transaction costs, such as brokerage commissions, or the need to buy round lots, and the company will reinvest the dividend into additional company stock. In fact, dividends can be used to buy fractional shares of stock. Most companies also allow partial participation where the stockholder can specify the amount to be reinvested and the amount to be paid as cash.
DRIPs are usually administered by large banks, who issue quarterly reports to the DRIP participants, stating the number of the shares in the account, the number acquired, and the prices paid. The bank may charge an annual fee for the service, which the company may pay. The company may issue the stock directly, often times at a discount, or its bank may go out into the open market and buy the shares, in which case, the DRIP investors, will pay the market price.
DRIPs differ from stock dividends in that taxes are due on the reinvested dividends when the dividends are earned. More info: Taxation of Dividends.