The outlook for S&P 500 (Index: SPX) quarterly dividends per share continued to improve during the three months since our previous regular snapshot.
That's good news following the turmoil earlier this year kicked off by the Silicon Valley Bank run on 10 March 2023. Dividend futures quickly collapsed with projected dividends for the index in 2023-Q4 dropping from $16.99 to $15.94 per share by 29 March 2023.
By 24 April 2023 however, they had recovered to $16.95 per share, but that was before First Republic Bank's and PacWest Bank's reported troubles, which sent the expected dividends for 2023-Q4 back down to $16.75 per share, which is where it was at our last snapshot from 8 May 2023.
Since then, the S&P 500's expected dividends for the fourth quarter of 2023 have continued their rocky recovery path. The following chart shows what the outlook is for the S&P 500's dividends as of our latest snapshot on 18 August 2023.
We find the S&P 500's projected quarterly dividends per share for the fourth quarter of 2023 has risen to $17.03 per share in this new snapshot. However, in between 8 May 2023 and 18 August 2023, the projected dividends per share for this quarter had risen as high as $17.17 per share on 24 July 2023 before retreating to its current level. The path for the S&P 500's dividends per share continues to be rocky.
We'll take our next scheduled snapshot of the outlook for the S&P 500's quarterly dividends per share in about three months.