Waning Appetite

The S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats index, which tracks companies that have raised payouts every year for at least 25 years, has outperformed, surging 300 percent. It’s down 0.5 percent on a total return basis in 2015 compared with a 0.4 percent gain in the S&P 500.

Investor appetite for dividend stocks is waning. They’ve pulled money from funds focusing on stocks with higher payouts in almost every week since mid-June, the worst stretch of outflows since 2008, data compiled by EPFR Global Inc. show.

“There is no doubt that if corporate cash flows start to be constrained or more constrained than they’ve been in the past, the rate of overall buybacks and dividends should slow,” Joseph Veranth, chief investment officer at Dana Investment Advisors in Brookfield, Wisconsin, said by phone. The firm manages $6.2 billion. “I would expect the slowdown, at least in dividend growth, to continue going forward unless we move into a more significant expansion phase again.”

First « 1 2 3 » Next