Dividend Payers Perform Respectably In July

For the month of July, dividend payers in the S&P 500 Index generated an average return of 9.56%. This compares to the return of the non-payers of 9.76%. The return for the payers is certainly respectable given they have been laggards this year. On a year to date basis, the non-payers return of 36.59% for and away exceeds the payers return of 6.90%.

Standard & Poor's notes:

• July payments were down 31%, marking the lowest July payment since 2002. Companies have been cautious, with the average increase down to 8.5%. This is compared to an average increase of 13.7% in 2008 and 18.2% in 2007.

• Year-to-date, there has been 71 dividend cuts (61 reductions totaling US$-46.1B and 10 suspensions costing US$-1.2B). The Q2 2009 reductions in payments of 23.4% is the worst since the 24.4% decline in Q3 1958.