More Decreases, Fewer Increases and Higher Yields

NEW YORK, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Standard & Poor's, the world's leading index provider, announced today that 288 of the approximately 7,000 publicly owned companies that report dividend information to Standard & Poor's Dividend Record decreased their dividend during the fourth quarter of 2008, representing a 444% increase from the 52 issues that decreased their dividend during the fourth quarter of 2007. Reported dividend increases fell 40.0% to 475 from the 792 reported during the fourth quarter of 2007.

"It was the worst quarter for dividends since we started keeping dividend records in 1956," says Howard Silverblatt, Senior Index Analyst at Standard & Poor's. "Due to the timing of the cuts many issues actually paid in the fourth quarter, so the full impact of the cuts won't be felt until the first quarter of 2009. Dividend increases continued to fall, and given the heightened uncertainty and change in spending habits, companies will be wary of any increases."

"Yields for paying issues have doubled over the past two years to 7.28% in 2008," continues Silverblatt. "As a result, investors need to be careful of overly generous yields, which are due mostly to depressed stocks. It is a different risk-reward trade off than dividend investors are typically used to."

Silverblatt concludes by noting that many issues are still increasing their dividend rate despite the massive number of dividend cuts. "Simply put, investors need to be diligent. They need to check earnings and cash flow from current operations to ensure that the company still has the ability to pay."

To download Standard & Poor's Dividend Record, please visit the following web address: www.marketattributes.standardandpoors.com and click on "Dividends."




    YEAR    POSITIVE NEGATIVE DIVIDEND
            DIVIDEND DIVIDEND  BREADTH
             ACTIONS  ACTIONS

    Q4 2008      475      288     1.65
    Q4 2007      792       52    15.23

       2008    1,874      606     3.09
       2007    2,513      110    22.85
       2006    2,617       87    30.08
       2005    2,518       84    29.98
       2004    2,298       62    37.06
       2003    2,162      104    20.79
       2002    1,756      135    13.01
       2001    1,668      205     8.14
       2000    1,886      137    13.77
       1999    2,125      144    14.76

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Standard & Poor's Index Services, the world's leading index provider, maintains a wide variety of investable and benchmark indices to meet an array of investor needs. Its family of indices includes the S&P 500, an index with $1.5 trillion invested and $4.85 trillion benchmarked, and the S&P Global 1200, a composite index comprised of seven regional and country headline indices. For more information, please visit www.standardandpoors.com/indices.

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SOURCE Standard & Poor's