S&P: U.S. Companies Add $7 Billion to Dividend Payments in 2nd Quarter

NEW YORK, July 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Standard & Poor's, the world's leading index provider, announced today that of the approximately 7,000 publicly owned companies that report dividend information to Standard & Poor's, only 34 decreased their dividend payment during the second quarter of 2010 – marking a dramatic improvement from the 250 that lowered their dividend payment in the second quarter of 2009.  Dividend increases rose 43.8% for the quarter to 335 from the 233 recorded during the second quarter of 2009.

Standard & Poor's also reports that, for the second quarter of 2010, the forward net change in the indicated dividend rate was a positive $7.9 billion, which compares quite favorably to the $4.9 billion in reductions recorded in the second quarter of 2009.

"The rebirth of dividends in the U.S. domestic market continued into the second quarter with more issues increasing cash dividends; however, and more importantly, the downslide in dividend decreases has stopped," says Howard Silverblatt, Senior Index Analyst at S&P Indices. "The hole in investor's pockets has been closed, but filling it back up again will take at least a year."

According to Silverblatt, on a dollar-weighted basis, the first half of 2010 saw a net change in annual dividend rates of $13.4 billion compared to a $48.6 billion decline in rates during the first-half of 2009. "The speed of the turnaround is amazing: from a record devastating first half last year to a very encouraging start this year. Companies are starting to regain confidence, and they are showing it with higher cash payments," notes Silverblatt.

S&P Indices believes that the recovery in dividends will continue to be slow and highly contingent upon companies seeing their specific sales and profits continuing to grow.  Silverblatt expects that it will take until 2013 for the broader dividend market to return to the 2007/2008 levels ... "if the economy cooperates."

To download Standard & Poor's Dividend Record, please visit the following web address: www.marketattributes.standardandpoors.com and click on "Dividends". For more information about S&P Indices, please visit www.standardandpoors.com/indices.

* Source: S&P Indices

About S&P Indices

S&P Indices, the world's leading index provider, maintains a wide variety of investable and benchmark indices to meet an array of investor needs. Over $1.25 trillion is directly indexed to Standard & Poor's family of indices, which includes the S&P 500, the world's most followed stock market index, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, the S&P Global BMI, an index with approximately 11,000 constituents, the S&P GSCI, the industry's most closely watched commodities index, and the S&P National AMT-Free Municipal Bond Index, the premier investable index for U.S. municipal bonds. For more information, please visit www.standardandpoors.com/indices.

About Standard & Poor's

Standard & Poor's, a subsidiary of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), is the world's foremost provider of independent credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, investment research and data. With offices in 23 countries and markets, Standard & Poor's is an essential part of the world's financial infrastructure and has played a leading role for 150 years in providing investors with the independent benchmarks they need to feel more confident about their investment and financial decisions. For more information, visit http://www.standardandpoors.com

SOURCE Standard & Poor's