U.S. stock market dividends turned in a mostly negative performance in March 2025.
On the positive side of the ledger, March 2025's 16 dividend decreases came in below the 23 recorded in February 2025. Meanwhile, the year-over-year change in dividend reductions was little changed, increasing by just one over March 2024's total.
However, the change in the number of favorable changes like dividend increases, extra dividends and resumed dividends was decidedly negative. Combined, these three categories added to 141 favorable dividend actions for March 2025, which is 59 less than the 200 reported a year earlier.
This significant year-over-year reduction in favorable dividend actions combines with the small increase in unfavorable dividend changes to give March 2025 an overall score of -60. The following table presents Standard and Poor's dividend metadata for March 2025. It summarizes how the month's dividend data compares in both Month-over-Month (MoM) and Year-Over-Year (YoY) terms with previously reported data:
| Dividend Changes in March 2025 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar-2025 | Feb-2025 | MoM | Mar-2024 | YoY | |
| Total Declarations | 3,585 | 4,185 | -600 ▼ | 5,306 | -1,721 ▼ |
| Favorable | 141 | 387 | -246 ▼ | 200 | -59 ▼ |
| - Increases | 93 | 286 | -193 ▼ | 130 | -37 ▼ |
| - Special/Extra | 47 | 99 | -52 ▼ | 67 | -20 ▼ |
| - Resumed | 1 | 2 | -1 ▼ | 3 | -2 ▼ |
| Unfavorable | 16 | 23 | -7 ▼ | 15 | 1 ▲ |
| - Decreases | 16 | 23 | -7 ▼ | 15 | 1 ▲ |
| - Omitted/Passed | 0 | 0 | 0 ◀▶ | 0 | 0 ◀▶ |
The following chart shows how these numbers fit in the longer running context of dividend increases and decreases since January 2004.
March 2025 represents a continuation of an ongoing negative trend for dividend increases that's been going on since the first quarter of 2023.
Switching to quarterly dividend results, the next chart, groups the previous 15 months worth of dividend increase and decrease data into quarters, covering the last five quarters from 2024-Q1 through 2025-Q1. The chart shows 2025-Q1 was more negative for dividend paying companies in the U.S. stock market than 2024-Q1 was.
The silver lining in this data is that the overall number of monthly dividend decreases remains below the threshold that is consistent with recessionary conditions being present in the U.S. economy.
But with a falling number of favorable dividend actions, how long might that continue?
References
Standard and Poor. S&P Market Attributes Web File. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 1 April 2025.
Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "An editorial cartoon of a Wall Street bull and bear anxiously watching a display that says 'DIVIDEND RESULTS'".
Labels: dividends
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