The outlook for the S&P 500's dividends in upcoming quarters is little changed since our previous snapshot of the future for the index' cash payouts a month ago.
The little change that has taken place however is mixed. For the three remaining quarters of 2025, expected dividends are up in the current quarter of 2025-Q2, up slightly in 2025-Q3, but down slightly in 2025-Q4. Here are the numbers recorded as of the close of trading on Monday, 16 May 2025.
- 2025-Q2: Increase of $0.14, rising to $19.21 per share
- 2025-Q3: Increase of $0.03, rising to $19.13 per share
- 2025-Q4: Decrease of $0.03, falling to $19.27 per share
The following animated chart shows how expectations for the S&P 500's quarterly dividends per share changed in the month from 15 April 2025 to 15 May 2025. If you're reading this article on a site that republishes our RSS news feed, you may need to click through to our site to see the animation.
This is the last time 2025-Q2 will be presented as a future quarter in this series. The expiration of June 2025's quarterly dividend futures contract will come with the close of trading on this upcoming Friday. We don't anticipate the projected dividends in the chart will change very much before it expires.
How changes in the outlook for dividends at specific points of time in the future contribute to changes in stock prices is described by this math.
More About Dividend Futures Data
For this series, we have been taking a snapshot of the CME Group's S&P 500 quarterly dividend futures data shortly after the second or third week of each month.
Dividend futures indicate the amount of dividends per share to be paid out over the period covered by each quarter's dividend futures contracts, which start on the day after the preceding quarter's dividend futures contracts expire and end on the third Friday of the month ending the indicated quarter. So for example, as determined by dividend futures contracts, the now "current" quarter of 2025-Q2 began on Saturday, 22 March 2025 and will end on Friday, 20 June 2025. From the perspective of dividend futures, 2025-Q3 will become the current quarter effective on Saturday, 21 June 2025.
Because dividend futures are tied to options contracts that run on this schedule, that makes these figures different from the quarterly dividends per share figures that are reported by Standard and Poor. S&P reports the amount of dividends per share paid out during regular calendar quarters after the end of each quarter. This term mismatch accounts for the differences in dividends reported by both sources, with the biggest differences between the two typically seen in the first and fourth quarters of each year.
Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "A crystal ball with the word 'SP 500' written inside it". And 'Dividends' written above it, which we added.