Dividend paying firms in the U.S. stock market saw more negative than positive changes in November 2025 when compared against the market of November 2024. That's disappointing because October 2025 saw dividend payers break an eight-month-long losing streak for this simple measure that indicates the relative health of the underlying U.S. economy by turning in a positive result.

Alas, there is no new winning streak taking hold. The single number that describes how dividend payers fared during the month is -22, with that many more unfavorable actions outweighing the kind of favorable actions that the owners of dividend paying stocks like to see.

Falling back into the recent pattern of the eight month-long losing streak, this net outcome was the result of a declining number of favorable changes like dividend increases and announcements of extra (or special) dividends payments for shareholders. Overall, there were 28 fewer favorable actions in November 2025 than there were in the same month a year earlier, of which, there were 19 fewer extra dividends and 9 fewer increases than had been announced in November 2024.

These unfavorable changes outweighed the favorable development of fewer companies decreasing their dividend payouts. There were just 10 such firms counted by Standard & Poor in its tally for November 2025, a decrease of 6 from the total recorded a year earlier.

The following table totals up all the favorable and unfavorable dividend actions for November 2025 and compares the figures with the values recorded for October 2025 and November 2024 to reveal how they changed month-over-month (MoM) and year-over-year (YoY):

The following chart visualizes the monthly counts of dividend increases and decreases from January 2004 through November 2025.

The bottom line? While November 2025's dividend metadata contained some positive developments, they were overshadowed, resulting in a net negative outcome for dividend paying companies in the U.S. stock market.

References

Standard and Poor. S&P Market Attributes Web File. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 1 December 2025.

Image credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "An editorial cartoon of a Wall Street bear dressed as a hockey goalie blocking shots by a skating Wall Street bull dressed as a hockey player trying to score goals in a net that says 'FAVORABLE DIVIDEND CHANGES'".

The S&P 500's dividend outlook for the final quarter of 2025 brightened in the month since our last snapshot of their outlook.

On 15 October 2025, the CME Group's S&P 500 Quarterly Dividend Index' Futures quotes indicated investors could expect to collect $19.90 per share during the period covered by 2025-Q4 dividend futures contracts. On Friday, 14 November 2025, that rose to $19.94 per share, an increase of 0.2% from the previous month's outlook.

Our October 2025 snapshot also presented the projections for the S&P 500's dividends per share through the second quarter of 2026. Here is how the dividends expected in the future quarters of 2026-Q1 and 2026-Q2 changed in the past month:

• 2026-Q1: Decrease of $0.01, dipping to $20.89 per share
• 2026-Q2: Increase of $0.02, rising to $19.73 per share

For this dividend snapshot, we're extending the outlook for the S&P 500's expected dividends per share through the fourth quarter of 2026. The following chart presents the S&P 500's quarterly dividends per share as provided by dividend futures contracts from 2024-Q1 through 2026-Q4.

A note of caution on the dividend projection for 2026-Q4. Because it covers expectations that are currently more than four quarters into the future, it's best understood as an initial projection based on very thin trading at this point of time. The projection for this quarter can be expected to change once it falls within the typical year-ahead period that defines the typical time horizon for investors and the investment activity for its related dividend futures contract picks up.

More About Dividend Futures Data

How changes in the outlook for dividends at specific points of time in the future contribute to changes in stock prices is described by this math.

For this series, we have been taking a snapshot of the CME Group's S&P 500 quarterly dividend futures data shortly after the second or third week of each month.

Dividend futures indicate the amount of dividends per share to be paid out over the period covered by each quarter's dividend futures contracts, which start on the day after the preceding quarter's dividend futures contracts expire and end on the third Friday of the month ending the indicated quarter. As determined by dividend futures contracts, the now "current" quarter of 2025-Q4 began on Saturday, 20 September 2025 and will end on Friday, 19 December 2025. From the perspective of dividend futures, the next quarter of 2026-Q1 will begin on Saturday, 22 December 2025.

Because dividend futures are tied to options contracts that run on this schedule, that makes these figures different from the quarterly dividends per share figures that are reported by Standard and Poor. S&P reports the amount of dividends per share paid out during regular calendar quarters after the end of each quarter. This term mismatch accounts for the differences in dividends reported by both sources, with the biggest differences between the two typically seen in the first and fourth quarters of each year.

Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "A crystal ball with the word 'SP 500' written inside it". And 'Dividends' written above it, which we added.

According to Standard & Poor, through October, there have been 145 dividend decreases announced by publicly traded U.S. firms during 2025.

But which companies have reduced their dividend payouts to their shareholding owners? Which industries have been most affected by the kinds of adverse business conditions that led the boards of directors at these companies to cut their dividends?

We've sampled 77 dividend decrease announcements made in the period from January 2025 through October 2025 to find out. Here's that list, in which clicking the company's name will take you to our source for the dividend decrease announcement and provide more information about it. We're also presenting a bonus section that includes firms that declared they will pay lower dividends than they did in their previous dividend payout during the first seven days of November 2025....

January 2025

• MV Oil Trust (NYSE: MVO)
• Mesa Royalty Trust (NYSE: MTR)
• VOC Energy Trust (NYSE: VOC)
• PermRock Royalty Trust (NYSE: PRT)
• Dorchester Minerals (NASDAQ: DMLP)

February 2025

• Chesapeake Granite Wash Trust (NYSE: CHKR)
• Sabine Royalty Trust (NYSE: SBR)
• Ares Commercial Real Estate (REIT-Mortgage) (NYSE: ACRE)
• Cross Timbers Royalty Trust (NYSE: CRT)
• Marine Petroleum Trust (NASDAQ: MARPS)
• Genco Shipping & Trading (NYSE: GNK)
• Xerox (NYSE: XRX)
• Blooming' Brands (Restaurants) (NASDAQ: BLMN)

March 2025

• Ready Capital (REIT-Mortgage) (NYSE: RC)
• Orion Office REIT (NYSE: ONL)
• Sabine Royalty Trust (NYSE: SBR)
• Kohl's (Retail) (NYSE: KSS)
• Armada Hoffler Properties (REIT-Diversified) (NYSE: AHH)
• PermRock Royalty Trust (NYSE: PRT)
• Invesco Mortgage Capital (REIT-Mortgage) (NYSE: IVR)

April 2025

• Global Net Lease (REIT-Office) (NYSE: GNL)
• Easterly Government (REIT-Office) (NYSE: DEA)
• Cross Timbers Royalty Trust (NYSE: CRT)
• PermRock Royalty Trust (NYSE: PRT)
• Mesa Royalty Trust (NYSE: MTR)
• Dorchester Minerals (NASDAQ: DMLP)

May 2025

• Organon (NYSE: OGN)
• Wendy's (Restaurants) (NASDAQ: WEN)
• Sabine Royalty Trust (NYSE: SBR)
• Chemours (NYSE: CC)
• TPG Inc. (NASDAQ: TPG)
• Ardmore Shipping (NYSE: ASC)
• Genco Shipping & Trading (NYSE: GNK)
• Sitio Royalties (NYSE: STR)
• Pangaea Logistics (NASDAQ: PANL)
• Permian Basin Royalty Trust (NYSE: PBT)
• Crown Castle International (REIT-Specialty) (NYSE: CCI)
• Xerox (NYSE: XRX)
• Global Medical REIT (REIT-Healthcare) (NYSE: GMRE)

June 2025

• Sabine Royalty Trust (NYSE: SBR)
• AFC Gamma REIT-Specialty (NASDAQ: AFCG)
• Two Harbors Investment (REIT-Mortgage) (NYSE: TWO)
• Cross Timbers Royalty Trust (NYSE: CRT)
• Permian Basin Royalty Trust (NYSE: PBT)

July 2025

• Sabine Royalty Trust (NYSE: SBR)
• MV Oil Trust (NYSE: MVO)
• Seven Hills Realty Trust (NASDAQ: SEVN)
• United-Guardian (NASDAQ: UG)
• Mesa Royalty Trust (NYSE: MTR)
• VOC Energy Trust (NYSE: VOC)
• Cross Timbers Royalty Trust (NYSE: CRT)
• PermRock Royalty Trust (NYSE: PRT)
• First Bancorp (NASDAQ: FBNC)
• Cal-Maine Foods (NASDAQ: CALM)
• Dow (NYSE: DOW)
• AllianceBernstein (NYSE: AB)
• Dorchester Minerals (NASDAQ: DMLP)
• Alliance Resource Partners (NASDAQ: ARLP)
• Westlake Chemical Partners (NYSE: WLKP)
• Tronox (NYSE: TROX)
• Sturm Ruger (NYSE: RGR)

August 2025

• Taitron Components (NASDAQ: TAIT)
• Chesapeake Granite Wash Trust (NYSE: CHKR)
• TXO Partners (NYSE: TXO)
• Mesa Royalty Trust (NYSE: MTR)
• Cross Timbers Royalty Trust (NYSE: CRT)
• Marine Petroleum Trust (NASDAQ: MARPS)
• PermRock Royalty Trust (NYSE: PRT)
• Two Harbors Investment (REIT-Mortgage) (NYSE: TWO)
• Fortive (NYSE: FTV)
• Guess (NYSE: GES)

September 2025

• Sabine Royalty Trust (NYSE: SBR)
• Boston Properties (REIT-Office) (NYSE: BXP)
• Cherry Hill Mortgage (REIT-Mortgage) (NYSE: CHMI)
• Lument Finance Trust (REIT-Mortgage) (NASDAQ: LFT)
• Mesa Royalty Trust (NYSE: MTR)
• Brandywine Realty Trust (REIT-Office) (NASDAQ: BDN)

October 2025

• Cal-Maine Foods (NASDAQ: CALM)
• Sabine Royalty Trust (NYSE: SBR)

November 2025 (through 7 November 2025)

• TPG Inc. (NASDAQ: TPG)
• Chesapeake Granite Wash Trust (NYSE: CHKR)
• DineEquity (Restaurants) (NYSE: DIN)
• DuPont (NYSE: DD)
• Huntsman (NYSE: HUN)
• Sabine Royalty Trust (NYSE: SBR)
• Dorchester Minerals (NASDAQ: DMLP)

Some quick notes. First, there are a number of monthly dividend payers included in this sampling that pay variable dividends. These are primarily oil and gas royalty trusts, which pay distributions that are directly tied to their previous month's revenues and earnings and which fluctuate with the price of oil. When you see a lot of these firms in a month, it usually means the oil and gas industry experienced some distress in the form of lower oil prices in the previous month. Several of these firms made multiple appearances in our sampling during 2025.

Other firms pay fixed dividends, where the firms' board of directors deliberately acted to change their dividend policy. That's a painful act for all involved: shareholders, managers, and the board members at these companies because their dividend decrease is often accompanied by a plunge in their stock price. That's so painful they typically seek to avoid cutting their dividends unless they see no way around it because the outlook for the companies has changed for the worse.

2025 provided a great example of that kind of pain and reaction from an unexpected dividend cut in the story of Organon, which "blindsided" investors by slashing their dividend by 92% on 1 May 2025. Since then the company's stock price has continued to flounder in no small part because its now-former CEO was engaged in an "improper" practice that artificially inflated the pharmaceutical firm's earnings.

Other companies provided information that gave ample warning to investors long before they finally cut their dividend. One example is chemical industry giant Dow, which halved its dividend on 24 July 2025. The firm's divided cut came after several quarters of a worsening business outlook in which investors expecting the firm would be forced to cut its dividend steadily sent its stock price lower.

Speaking of which, another chemical industry firm, LyondellBasell Industries (NYSE: LYB) has seen its stock price follow a similar downward trajectory that is still continuing as its business outlook worsened and as the sustainability of its dividend, which has not yet been cut, has increasingly come into question. This is a company to pay attention to pay attention to for that reason in the months ahead.

We'll close with a chart showing which industries have experienced the most dividend decreases during the first ten months of 2025:

2025 has been a year in which oil and gas prices have fallen, which accounts for the oil and gas industry's leading position in the chart. Real estate investment trusts (REITs) claimed second place, though much of this industry's distress carried over from 2024 as the Biden-Harris era's elevated mortgage and interest rates continued into 2025.

Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "A realistic image of a dividend cheque from 'DIVIDEND PAYING COMPANY' being cut in half by a pair of scissors, symbolizing dividend cuts or financial loss, with a neutral background".

October 2025 broke an eight-month-long losing streak for dividend paying stocks in the U.S. stock market. The single number that summarizes the month is +22, which represents the net change in the number of favorable and unfavorable dividend actions recorded during the month when compared with those of October 2024.

The dividend changes announced in October 2025 were unambiguously positive. The number of unfavorable dividend changes announced during the month, such as dividend decreases and suspended (or omitted) dividend payments was flat year-over-year at seven, which falls well below the level that signals recessionary conditions are present in the U.S. economy. Favorable dividend changes, which include dividend rises and special (or extra) dividend payments were up by 22, accounting for the entire improvement.

That outcome stands out because many preceding months have been characterized by a falling number of favorable dividend actions, which have pulled the single number that captures all the stock market's dividend metadata into net negative territory.

The following table presents these figures and the month-over-month and year-over-year changes for October 2025's dividends:

The following chart visualizes the monthly counts of dividend increases and decreases from January 2004 through October 2025. Be sure to note the falling number of firms announcing dividend rises since early 2023, for which October 2025's dividend actions represents a potential break in a long-established downward trend.

The next several months of dividend metadata will confirm if October 2025's dividend actions are an outlier in an otherwise continuing downtrend or are perhaps the first indication that trend is breaking down to be replaced by a more positive pattern.

References

Standard and Poor. S&P Market Attributes Web File. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 3 November 2025.

Image credit: Calendar by Karen Arnold on PublicDomainPictures.net. Creative Commons Creative Commons - CC0 Public Domain.

The outlook for the S&P 500's dividends in the current and remaining quarters of 2025 saw small changes in the month since we last presented a snapshot of their future. The changes were mixed overall, with the total change over all future quarters we previously covered netting out to zero.

Our last snapshot of the CME Group's S&P 500 Quarterly Dividend Index' Futures quotes was taken on 15 September 2025. The new snapshot is from Wednesday, 15 October 2025. Here is a short summary of the changes over the month-long interval between the snapshots:

• 2025-Q3: Finalized at $19.64 per share, no change.
• 2025-Q4: Increase of $0.02, rising to $19.90 per share
• 2026-Q1: Decrease of $0.02, dipping to $20.90 per share

We're also introducing the outlook for the second quarter of 2026 in our presentation this month, for which the CME Group's futures project quarterly dividends of $19.72 per share.

The following chart presents the S&P 500's quarterly dividends per share as provided by dividend futures contracts from 2023-Q1 through 2026-Q2.

Overall, the dividend outlook in future quarters is improving over time, with the projections for each quarter coming in higher than the same quarter in preceding years. At the same time, the projected rate of dividend growth for future quarters is slowing.

We've focused on presenting the dividend futures data for the current quarter (2025-Q4) and the next two quarters (2026-Q1 and 2026-Q2) because the S&P 500 investors have focused their attention on these quarters in recent weeks.

More About Dividend Futures Data

How changes in the outlook for dividends at specific points of time in the future contribute to changes in stock prices is described by this math.

For this series, we have been taking a snapshot of the CME Group's S&P 500 quarterly dividend futures data shortly after the second or third week of each month.

Dividend futures indicate the amount of dividends per share to be paid out over the period covered by each quarter's dividend futures contracts, which start on the day after the preceding quarter's dividend futures contracts expire and end on the third Friday of the month ending the indicated quarter. As determined by dividend futures contracts, the now "current" quarter of 2025-Q4 began on Saturday, 20 September 2025 and will end on Friday, 19 December 2025. From the perspective of dividend futures, the next quarter of 2026-Q1 will begin on Saturday, 22 December 2025.

Because dividend futures are tied to options contracts that run on this schedule, that makes these figures different from the quarterly dividends per share figures that are reported by Standard and Poor. S&P reports the amount of dividends per share paid out during regular calendar quarters after the end of each quarter. This term mismatch accounts for the differences in dividends reported by both sources, with the biggest differences between the two typically seen in the first and fourth quarters of each year.

Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "A crystal ball with the word 'SP 500' written inside it". And 'Dividends' written above it, which we added.

September 2025 was a disappointing month for dividend investors in the U.S. stock market. For the eighth month in a row, the net outcome of favorable and unfavorable changes among dividend paying stocks was negative.

That's what we find after adding up all the favorable year-over-year dividend actions like dividend increases, extra dividends and resumptions during September 2025 and then subtracting all the unfavorable actions, like announced dividend decreases. The result of that math is a single number that summarizes all the dividend changes during the month, which for September 2025, produced a value of -46.

This outcome resulted from two factors. First, there was a year-over-year increase in obviously unfavorable dividend changes with September 2025 having 17 dividend decreases announced during the month, an increase of eight over September 2024's total of 9 firms announcing reduced dividend payments.

The second factor is less obvious but had a bigger impact. The number of firms announcing favorable dividend increases dropped from a total of 136 in September 2024 to just 98 in September 2025. That reduction of 38 dividend increases pulled the number of net dividend changes well into negative territory as bearish factors in the market figuratively intercepted a substantial number of potential dividend hikes.

September 2025's favorable and unfavorable dividend actions are tallied in the following table, which reveals how much they changed since September 2024 (year-over-year) and since August 2025 (month-over-month).

The following chart tracks the monthly counts of dividend increases and decreases from January 2004 through September 2025:

The good news is the number of dividend decreases remains well below the threshold that indicates outright recessionary conditions are present within the U.S. economy. The bad news is the number of dividend increases has dropped to a level that indicates many publicly-traded companies in the U.S. are facing substantial headwinds. Whether that might turn into recessionary conditions is a reason to keep paying close attention to these near-real time economic indicators.

The next chart visualizes how the dividend increases and decreases reported during 2025-Q3 compare with each of the preceding four quarters:

This chart underscores the curious state of the U.S. stock market's dividends, in which dividend increases have fallen off considerably since the first quarter of 2025, while the number of dividend decreases has been relatively steady, falling within a comparatively narrow range.

Will that pattern continue in the next month and quarter? Stay tuned!

References

Standard and Poor. S&P Market Attributes Web File. [Excel Spreadsheet]. Accessed 1 October 2025.

Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "An editorial cartoon of a Wall Street bull and a bear who are playing football and the bear intercepts a pass for a ball that says DIVIDEND HIKES".

Vanguard is one of the world's largest brokerages. It grew to be as large as it is because it developed low-cost investment options like mutual funds and index funds, which put owning stocks into the affordable reach of millions of people.

Earlier this year, Vanguard polled its investors because they had a question about why they had chosen to invest the way they had. The investors in question had invested in the company's Equity Income Fund (Index: VEIPX). The fund is composed of stocks that pay relatively high yield dividends, so investors owning the fund could expect to get dividend income from their investment in it once a quarter.

Except most their investors were choosing to pass on pocketing that income. Vanguard portfolio manager Sharon Hill describes what they were doing instead:

“We call the fund Equity Income, and we focus on stocks that offer above-average dividend yields,” said Hill, head of the Global & Income Active Equity team within Vanguard Quantitative Equity Group, our in-house active equity manager. “But on the days the fund distributes dividends, we generally don’t need to raise much capital. Most of the investors reinvest their dividends in the fund.”...

“We thought, ‘Why would investors own an income fund if they didn’t want the income?’” Hill said. “So we decided to ask them.”

They asked more than 5,000 investors why. They found the practice wasn't limited to the Equity Income Fund:

The results showed that across Vanguard’s five equity income funds—those with the terms “high dividend” or “income” in their names—only 12% of investors said they needed the income produced by the funds. More than 80% said they reinvested the dividends. Interestingly, equity income fund investors were no more likely to withdraw their dividends than investors in other equity funds.

Why would such a large percentage of investors plow their dividends back into the funds they had invested? As Vanguard notes:

In theory, in the absence of tax and trading costs, investors shouldn’t care whether they receive their returns in the form of dividends or price appreciation. That’s because a dividend payment reduces a company’s value—and, all else equal, its share price—by the amount of the payment.

Since Vanguard provides options to invest in growth-oriented funds, which pay little-to-no dividends so their investment gains come purely from their growing in value, it wouldn't seem to make much sense for investors to invest in their income-oriented funds. Especially if they were just going to reinvest the dividends they earned back into the funds.

Here's what behavioral economist Paulo Costa found after they asked why:

About half of investors said they own equity income funds because they prefer to invest in dividend-paying companies. Many of these investors said they believe that the stocks of companies paying high dividend rates have higher returns and lower volatility than other stocks, and that such companies care more about their investors than companies paying low dividend rates.

“These results suggest investors derive emotional benefit from investing in dividend-paying stocks, in addition to the more utilitarian, financial benefits,” Costa said.

When investors were asked why they reinvested their dividends, about 80% cited a preference for compounding returns. About 70% said they reinvested because they didn’t need the dividends for immediate spending. “Many dividend reinvestors may be positioning themselves to receive income at a later date, to meet future spending needs,” Costa said.

Here's the chart capturing the responses Costa received when asking the dividend re-investors why they were reinvesting:

While Costa focused in on the behavioral aspects of the survey responses, the surveyed investors indicated they had a rather important financial incentive to reinvest their dividends: "they believe that the stocks of companies paying high dividend rates have higher returns and lower volatility than other stocks".

According to the Wall Street Journal's Spencer Jakob, who reviewed Vanguard's study, they're right.

Data from the past 50 years compiled by Ned Davis Research shows that the annualized return of dividend payers in the S&P 500 was 9.2%, compared with only 4.3% for nonpayers, and with less choppiness too.

Dividend payers would have left you with 10 times as much wealth before taxes over that time as nonpayers. They also easily beat an equal-weighted basket of all companies in the index.

Earlier this year, we presented the following chart based on Ned Davis Research's data for the period from January 1973 through September 2024. Here it is again, where we find the returns are very close to the figures Jakob cites:

Generally speaking, dividend payers tend to have better returns with relatively less risk.

Related Reading

Going back to the question of whether investing in growth stocks versus dividend stocks (or stock funds) is more advantageous, we're going to point you to the very thought-provoking article Dividends Aren't Magic by Beyond Saving at Seeking Alpha which has a rather remarkable conclusion. We won't spoil it for you, but it is well worth reading the whole thing, if only because it reinforces a key point Vanguard learned from their dividend reinvesting investors....

Image credit: Cash Dividends by Nick Youngson on Picpedia.org. Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0. Alpha Stock Images.

The outlook for the S&P 500's dividends in the current and remaining quarters of 2025 has changed in the month since we presented our previous snapshot of their future. They have changed for both the worse and for the better since we took that snapshot just over a month ago.

The change for the worse applies to the current quarter of 2025-Q3, while the change for the better holds for the fourth and final quarter of 2025.

Our last snapshot of the CME Group's S&P 500 Quarterly Dividend Index' Futures quotes was taken on 13 August 2025. The new snapshot is from Monday, 15 September 2025. Here is our text summary of how they changed:

• 2025-Q3: Decrease of $0.17, declining to $19.64 per share
• 2025-Q4: Increase of $0.03, rising to $19.88 per share

The following animated chart shows how expectations for the S&P 500's quarterly dividends per share changed in the month from 13 August 2025 to 15 September 2025. If you're reading this article on a site that republishes our RSS news feed, you may need to click through to our site to see the animation.

As a special bonus, here's how the S&P 500's dividends expected in the first quarter of 2026 changed!

• 2026-Q1: Increase of $0.20, rising to $20.94 per share

If that expectation holds, it will represent a year-over-year increase of $0.61 per share, or three percent, over 2025-Q1's finalized $20.33 per share.

More About Dividend Futures Data

How changes in the outlook for dividends at specific points of time in the future contribute to changes in stock prices is described by this math.

For this series, we have been taking a snapshot of the CME Group's S&P 500 quarterly dividend futures data shortly after the second or third week of each month.

Dividend futures indicate the amount of dividends per share to be paid out over the period covered by each quarter's dividend futures contracts, which start on the day after the preceding quarter's dividend futures contracts expire and end on the third Friday of the month ending the indicated quarter. So for example, as determined by dividend futures contracts, the now "current" quarter of 2025-Q3 began on Saturday, 21 June 2025 and will end on this Friday, 19 September 2025. From the perspective of dividend futures, 2025-Q4 will become the current quarter on Saturday, 22 September 2025.

Because dividend futures are tied to options contracts that run on this schedule, that makes these figures different from the quarterly dividends per share figures that are reported by Standard and Poor. S&P reports the amount of dividends per share paid out during regular calendar quarters after the end of each quarter. This term mismatch accounts for the differences in dividends reported by both sources, with the biggest differences between the two typically seen in the first and fourth quarters of each year.

Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "A crystal ball with the word 'SP 500' written inside it". And 'Dividends' written above it, which we added.