January Was Not Kind To Dividend Payers In The S&P 500 Index

Dividend payers are not getting off to a good start in 2009. For the month of January, the dividend payers in the S&P 500 Index declined 9.40% versus a decline of 3.39% for the non-payers. The once reliable financial sector contributed to the poor performance for the dividend payers. The financial sector alone fell 26.55% versus the S&P's decline of 8.57% in January.

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In the month of January dividend decreases doubled to 10 versus 5 in January 2008.

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Source:

Market Attributes Snapshot (pdf)
Standard & Poor's
January 30, 2009
http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/pdf/index/2009_2_SP500.pdf