Unexpectedly Intriguing!
03 May 2023
Brown Grizzly Bear by anvesh baru via Unsplash - https://unsplash.com/photos/2ZXrBR4ByAQ

Signs of distress continued to build in the U.S. stock market in April 2023. The number of firms increasing their dividends fell substantially during the month. Meanwhile, the number of firms reducing dividend payments to their shareholding owners also fell, though much of that seemingly positive development is attributable to things not getting much worse for one particular industry that's been absolutely slammed in recent months.

We'll get to that seemingly positive story when we get deeper into the month's unfavorable dividend actions. The bigger story in April 2023 is what happened with the number of firms announcing dividend increases.

To put this developing story into context, February 2023 set a new monthly record for this measure when 424 firms declared they would increase their dividend payouts. Two months later, the number of dividend paying companies in the U.S. stock market fell to 91.

That 78% drop represents the third-largest percentage decline of firms announcing dividend rises recorded over a two month period in U.S. stock market history. The second-largest event is the collapse in dividend increases that accompanied the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic recession, when the number of dividend rises announced plunged by 82% between February and April 2020. The only event worse than both these in percentage terms for dividend rises over two months was the 100% decline that took place between June and August 1932 as the U.S. stock market bottomed during the Great Depression.

Snapping back to the modern era, the following chart shows the number of firms either increasing their dividends each month (blue) or decreasing them (red).

Number of Public U.S. Firms Increasing or Decreasing Their Dividends Each Month, January 2004 through April 2023

To help flesh out the overall signal being sent by dividend-paying firms in the U.S. stock market, the following table presents their dividend metadata for April 2023. It shows both favorable and unfavorable dividend changes are notably down substantially, both in Month-over-Month (MoM) and Year-Over-Year (YoY) terms:

Dividend Changes in April 2023
   Apr-2023  Mar-2023    MoM  Apr-2022    YoY
Total Declarations 3,169 4,654 -1,485 ↓ 3,588 -419 ↓
Favorable 130 173 -43 ↓ 186 -56 ↓
- Increases 91 124 -33 ↓ 127 -36 ↓
- Special/Extra 39 44 -5 ↓ 53 -14 ↓
- Resumed 0 5 -5 ↓ 6 -6 ↓
Unfavorable 30 53 -23 ↓ 26 4 ↑
- Decreases 30 53 -23 ↓ 26 4 ↑
- Omitted/Passed 0 0 0 ↔ 0 0 ↔

Our monthly sampling of dividend changes captured 14 of the reported 30 unfavorable actions. In falling back from their elevated levels of recent months, the most notable change was the absence of variable and hybrid dividend payers in the oil and gas industry. That's because crude oil prices have largely stabilized in a range between $70 and $80 per barrel in 2023 following their ~35% plunge from June through December 2022. In April 2023, we counted six firms from this industrial sector.

That number was matched by firms whose businesses are sensitive to rising interest rates, including two banks, two financial services firms, and two office-REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts). The remaining two firms in our sampling include a mining firm and a utility company. Here's the list:

The two firms marked with an asterisk (*) in this listing, Via Renewables and Vornado Realty Trust, suspended (or omitted) their dividends during April 2023. That's notable mainly because we believe Standard and Poor is including these firms' actions in their monthly count of dividend decreases, which would account for why they recorded zero dividend omissions during the month. Decreases and omissions are both considered unfavorable changes for investors who own stock in dividend paying firms.

References

Standard and Poor. S&P Market Attributes Web File. [Excel Spreadsheet]. 2 May 2023.

Image credit: Photo by anvesh baru on Unsplash.

Labels: ,

About Political Calculations

Welcome to the blogosphere's toolchest! Here, unlike other blogs dedicated to analyzing current events, we create easy-to-use, simple tools to do the math related to them so you can get in on the action too! If you would like to learn more about these tools, or if you would like to contribute ideas to develop for this blog, please e-mail us at:

ironman at politicalcalculations

Thanks in advance!

Recent Posts

Indices, Futures, and Bonds

Closing values for previous trading day.

Most Popular Posts
Quick Index

Site Data

This site is primarily powered by:

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

CSS Validation

Valid CSS!

RSS Site Feed

AddThis Feed Button

JavaScript

The tools on this site are built using JavaScript. If you would like to learn more, one of the best free resources on the web is available at W3Schools.com.

Other Cool Resources

Blog Roll

Market Links

Useful Election Data
Charities We Support
Shopping Guides
Recommended Reading
Recently Shopped

Seeking Alpha Certified

Archives