Dividend Payers Underperform Non-Payers In May

In May the dividend paying stocks in the S&P 500 Index underperformed the non-payers, 1.90% versus 4.75% respectively. However, over the course of the trailing 12-months, the dividend payers have managed to maintain a slight performance edge over their non dividend paying counterparts, -10.56% versus -11.07%.

With respect to dividend increases and decreases, Standard & Poor's notes (pdf):

• Year-to-date, there have been 17 Financials reductions in dividend rates compared to 12 for 2002 through 2007.

• For the month, 27 issues increased, 0 initiated, 2 decreased and 0 suspended, versus 25 increases, 1 initiation, 0 decreases, 0 suspensions for the same period in 2007.

• Year-to-date increases are down 144 versus 155 issues in 2007, with decreases up 19 versus.