Current dividends in different stocks markets/indices?

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peteyperson
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Current dividends in different stocks markets/indices?

Post by peteyperson »

How can you find current data on the payout level on dividends for various markets and the indexes like S&P500 etc? I'm aware Prof Shiller has some data for the S&P historically but what I'd like to do is monitor the level of dividends ongoing and their movement.

Thanks,
Petey
JWR1945
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Post by JWR1945 »

My initial search has been unsuccessful. I have discovered that several of my older links don't work any more.

Professor Shiller updates his data just about every month. It includes the dividend amount and the price of the S&P 500. He provides this information in both nominal dollars and dollars after adjusting for inflation (real dollars).

It is possible that financial services at the Motley Fool and at Yahoo! provide this information via exchange traded funds or indices. I know that I can look up dividend amounts of stocks at the Motley Fool (and the related indices...they have ticker symbols) over the limited number of years in their database. I don't remember seeing dividends in any of their charts. That might suggest having to do a lot of work on your part.

Have fun.

John R.
peteyperson
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Post by peteyperson »

Yeah, I'm at the beginning of my search for this kind of information. It is hardly pressing, just something I know I'll need down the line. I keep hearing good things about finance.yahoo.com, so I'll have a sniff around there at some point. Shiller is another route, however I was looking for a source that could cover things on a more global scale so you can tell when different indices around the world that you're invested in are over or undervalued.

Petey
JWR1945 wrote:My initial search has been unsuccessful. I have discovered that several of my older links don't work any more.

Professor Shiller updates his data just about every month. It includes the dividend amount and the price of the S&P 500. He provides this information in both nominal dollars and dollars after adjusting for inflation (real dollars).

It is possible that financial services at the Motley Fool and at Yahoo! provide this information via exchange traded funds or indices. I know that I can look up dividend amounts of stocks at the Motley Fool (and the related indices...they have ticker symbols) over the limited number of years in their database. I don't remember seeing dividends in any of their charts. That might suggest having to do a lot of work on your part.

Have fun.

John R.
JWR1945
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Posts: 1697
Joined: Tue Nov 26, 2002 3:59 am
Location: Crestview, Florida

Post by JWR1945 »

As of last night, there was still nothing on dividends on finance.yahoo.com. They have made provisions for including historical dividend information sometime in the future. For now, they just tell us to check again later.

Have fun.

John R.
JWR1945
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Posts: 1697
Joined: Tue Nov 26, 2002 3:59 am
Location: Crestview, Florida

Post by JWR1945 »

In the January 5, 2004 issue of Barron's on page T7, about Special Requests in The Electronic Investor, there is some good and bad news.

Yes, detailed historical information about dividends, including indexes, does exist for a price. Dow Jones, which publishes Barron's, and Reuters have a joint venture website www.factiva.com . Everything that you might want is in its Historical Market Data Center.

I quote from the article: To get this information, however, a user needs corporate-level subscription to Factiva. Pricing plans vary, depending upon the number of people who will be able to obtain the information.

The article goes on to suggest using free stock screeners on Morningstar.com, Quicken.com or Money.net and a fair amount of your time to identify individual stocks. The article makes no suggestions at all about getting index numbers.

Still, since the information exists, we are likely to see some fee based investment sites offer this kind of information to their paying customers. It depends upon how many of their customers want it.

Have fun.

John R.
JWR1945
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Posts: 1697
Joined: Tue Nov 26, 2002 3:59 am
Location: Crestview, Florida

Post by JWR1945 »

To Peteyperson: I believe that I have located a source for the detailed dividend information that you want.

I found this link on Raddr's Retirement Portfolio Page under Retirement Portfolios - When to Rebalance?. "The data comes mostly from the Global Financial Data sample series."￾
http://www.globalfindata.com/

You can get monthly Dividend Yield data for the S&P500 (and equivalent) from 1871-2004 and similar data for other markets. But I think that you will want to pass. It is expensive. It costs $95 [in US Dollars] for the complete file. To get a lower price, you have to choose a start date of 1950 or 1980.

Have fun.

John R.
mannfm11
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go to the S&P website.

Post by mannfm11 »

standardandpoors.com
They have a spreadsheet showing a lot of data since about 1977. The current trailing dividend on the SPX is 1.61%.

As far as shillers spreadsheet, I have done a lot of work on the numbers involved. I have developed what I call trend inflation. It is a 10 year IRR based on the point to point change in prices over 10 years. Here, you can relate another 10 year point to point, the rate of growth of dividends in the SPX. Growth rate over inflation plus dividends equals the return over inflation. Since the real rate of interest is 3%, someting Schiller verified, one don't have to think long to understand that 1.22% plus 1.61% falls to a lower rate than 3% and to earn a superior return out of a portfolio made up of SPX stocks is a financial impossiblity. Shillers work on that spreadsheet is very financially sound, but in some ways, I think he is financially off base. His financial valuations of the SPX and mine are very close though. The one constant in stocks is dividends and the fact that over time they have grown at the rate of inflation plus 1%, give or take a fraction. This fact leads to the core idea of my next post
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