The outlook for the S&P 500's dividends through 2026 has not changed much since our previous snapshot of their future. But what change there has been is best described as "mixed".
Here is our summary of how the outlook for the S&P 500's dividends has changed in the past month for the final quarter of 2025 and the upcoming four quarters of 2026:
- 2025-Q4: Decrease of $0.05, finalizing at $19.86 per share
- 2026-Q1: Increase of $0.04, rising to $21.50 per share
- 2026-Q2: Decrease of $0.01, ticking down to $19.73 per share
- 2026-Q3: Increase of $0.08, rising to $20.09 per share
- 2026-Q4: Increase of $0.23, rising to $20.02 per share
Standard and Poor reports the cash dividends for the calendar quarter of 2026-Q4 is $20.26 per share. The difference between this value and the finalized dividend futures' value is attributable to the term mismatch between S&P's data and dividend futures contracts, which run on a slightly different schedule than the calendar quarters to which they apply (see the "More About Dividend Futures Data" section for more background).
The following chart shows how expectations for the S&P 500's quarterly dividends per share changed in the month from 15 December 2025 to 15 January 2026.
We're providing a bonus glimpse of the S&P 500's expected dividends for the distant future quarter of 2027-Q1, for which dividend futures currently anticipate a $21.33 per share cash payout. Since the end of that quarter is more than a year away, you can expect the expectations to change a lot for this quarter in the months ahead.
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. For example, as determined by dividend futures contracts, the now "current" quarter of 2026-Q1 began on Saturday, 20 December 2025 and will end on Friday, 20 March 2026.
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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