Conventional Valuation Yardsticks: Dividend Yield

Dividend Yield

Why is my discussion of dividend yield so short?

• Although at one time a measure of a business's prosperity, it has become a relic: stocks should simply not be bought on the basis of their dividend yield. 

Too often struggling companies sport high dividend yields, not because the dividends have been increased, but because the share prices have fallen. 

• Fearing that the stock price will drop further if the dividend is cut, managements maintain the payout, weakening the company even more. 
• Investors buying such stocks for their ostensibly high yields may not be receiving good value.  On the contrary, they may be the victims of a pathetic manipulation. 
• The high dividend paid by such companies is not a return on invested capital but rather a return of capital that represents the liquidation of the underlying business. 
• This manipulation was widely used by money-center banks through most of the 1980s and had the (desired) effect of propping up their share prices.

Conventional Valuation Yardsticks: Earnings, Book Value, and Dividend Yield
Both earnings and book value have a place in securities analysis but must be used with caution and as part of a more comprehensive valuation effort.