The outlook for the S&P 500's dividends in the current and remaining quarters of 2025 saw small changes in the month since we last presented a snapshot of their future. The changes were mixed overall, with the total change over all future quarters we previously covered netting out to zero.
Our last snapshot of the CME Group's S&P 500 Quarterly Dividend Index' Futures quotes was taken on 15 September 2025. The new snapshot is from Wednesday, 15 October 2025. Here is a short summary of the changes over the month-long interval between the snapshots:
- 2025-Q3: Finalized at $19.64 per share, no change.
- 2025-Q4: Increase of $0.02, rising to $19.90 per share
- 2026-Q1: Decrease of $0.02, dipping to $20.90 per share
We're also introducing the outlook for the second quarter of 2026 in our presentation this month, for which the CME Group's futures project quarterly dividends of $19.72 per share.
The following chart presents the S&P 500's quarterly dividends per share as provided by dividend futures contracts from 2023-Q1 through 2026-Q2.
Overall, the dividend outlook in future quarters is improving over time, with the projections for each quarter coming in higher than the same quarter in preceding years. At the same time, the projected rate of dividend growth for future quarters is slowing.
We've focused on presenting the dividend futures data for the current quarter (2025-Q4) and the next two quarters (2026-Q1 and 2026-Q2) because the S&P 500 investors have focused their attention on these quarters in recent weeks.
More About Dividend Futures Data
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.
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. As determined by dividend futures contracts, the now "current" quarter of 2025-Q4 began on Saturday, 20 September 2025 and will end on Friday, 19 December 2025. From the perspective of dividend futures, the next quarter of 2026-Q1 will begin on Saturday, 22 December 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.
Labels: dividends, forecasting, SP 500
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