The S&P 500's dividend outlook for the final quarter of 2025 brightened in the month since our last snapshot of their outlook.
On 15 October 2025, the CME Group's S&P 500 Quarterly Dividend Index' Futures quotes indicated investors could expect to collect $19.90 per share during the period covered by 2025-Q4 dividend futures contracts. On Friday, 14 November 2025, that rose to $19.94 per share, an increase of 0.2% from the previous month's outlook.
Our October 2025 snapshot also presented the projections for the S&P 500's dividends per share through the second quarter of 2026. Here is how the dividends expected in the future quarters of 2026-Q1 and 2026-Q2 changed in the past month:
- 2026-Q1: Decrease of $0.01, dipping to $20.89 per share
- 2026-Q2: Increase of $0.02, rising to $19.73 per share
For this dividend snapshot, we're extending the outlook for the S&P 500's expected dividends per share through the fourth quarter of 2026. The following chart presents the S&P 500's quarterly dividends per share as provided by dividend futures contracts from 2024-Q1 through 2026-Q4.
A note of caution on the dividend projection for 2026-Q4. Because it covers expectations that are currently more than four quarters into the future, it's best understood as an initial projection based on very thin trading at this point of time. The projection for this quarter can be expected to change once it falls within the typical year-ahead period that defines the typical time horizon for investors and the investment activity for its related dividend futures contract picks up.
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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