If you're the CEO of a publicly traded company, you're worried about quarterly returns.
The 2012 payout will be the lowest in our history: well below 50 percent.
The total amount paid out in dividends is roughly equal to the amount lost in trading and investment advice, so net dividends to shareholders are zero. This is a very peculiar way to run a republic.
A manager may be tough and practical, squeezing out, while the going is good, the last ounce of profit and dividend . . .
I don't like stock buybacks. I think if a company has the money to buy their stock back, then they should take that and increase the dividends. Send it back to the stockholder. Let them invest their money again from the dividends.
If you are an investor who's retired and hopes to live off the income that your portfolio is generating, then we would focus just on the dividend yield.
Some of the analysts were saying, Now you're a cash cow, there's no growth at all, pay it all out in dividends, give me it all, you can't invest wisely.
Shareholders share in the downside and not necessarily in the upside; that's the whole story.
At the end of the day, dividends are not being paid with margins; dividends are paid with earnings per share.
If you can't use dividends, it's not a bad thing to give it back to your shareholders. They'll use it somewhere else.
