Free Republic

In tracking BLM contributions, we found many companies prioritizing ‘racial justice’ to the detriment of shareholders and employees.Most Americans will remember the first few years of the 2020s for the pandemic, the lockdowns, the layoffs, and the Black Lives Matter (BLM)-fueled riots. Shareholders will also remember them as a tempestuous time for the market. Many companies announced mass layoffs and cuts to dividends and share buyback programs. For example, Disney’s last dividend date was Dec. 12, 2019.But shockingly, as we’ve shown in our BLM Funding Database, companies contributed or pledged more than $83 billion to the BLM movement and related...

... Between 2008 and 2017, 466 of the S&P 500 companies spent around $4 trillion on stock buybacks, equal to 53 percent of profits. Another 30 percent of corporate profits went to dividends. When more than 80 percent of corporate profits go to buybacks and dividends, there is reason to be concerned. This practice of corporate self-indulgence is not new, but it’s grown enormously. Fueled by the Trump tax cut, in 2018, United States corporations repurchased more than $1 trillion of their own stock, a staggering figure and the highest amount ever authorized in a single year. This has become...

Before the bill was even passed through Congress, Trump’s tax cut already started signaling strong signs for the American worker, putting more money in his or her pockets. Corporate America has not only celebrated it, but has literally handed out more money to its employees with the passage of this ultimate Christmas gift, becoming a real life Santa Claus. AT&T expanded its bonus program to additional 200,000 employees, getting $1,000 per person. Then came Boeing announcing a gift of $300 million in investments in its employee-related charitable program “to support our heroes, our homes and our future.” A college friend...

GE had been one of the biggest dividend payers in the United States, behind giants like ExxonMobil (XOM), Apple (AAPL, Tech30) and Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30). By cutting the dividend in half, GE will save more than $4 billion per year. That makes it one of the largest dividend cuts in the history of the S&P 500 and the biggest since 2009, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. GE made an even bigger dividend cut in 2009, during the Great Recession. But dividend cuts are rare these days. Many companies are increasing them because the U.S. economy is healthy and the...

The fact that it’s being proposed by Republicans doesn’t make it any more economically palatable. Madness is rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule — Friedrich Nietzsche ‘Cap and trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way,” Barack Obama declared after Democrats’ disastrous losses in the 2010 midterm elections. That shellacking finally killed off the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. From it was born the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and the Obama administration’s war on coal, in turn a contributory factor to Donald Trump’s election and Republicans’...

"Investors" are so desperate to hold on to short-term paper that they paid $100 for a 3-month Treasury-bill at today's auction. That is a 0% yield - for the first time ever - lower even than the auction right after Lehman's bankruptcy in Nov 2008. It is probably safe to say that NIRP is next, followed by more negative yields further to the right of the curve, as the US gradually becomes Europe. But don't worry: as Yellen admitted during her healthcare-scare speech, "nominal interest rates cannot go much below zero", just a little.

Just days after JPMorgan revealed it would fire another 5,000 by the end of the year in a "scalpel" headcount reduction, overnight the world's favorite drug money laundering bank HSBC unleashed the "machete" and announced it would cut almost 50,000 workers, or one in five bankers, a move which would shrink the investment bank division by one-third. The reason: the same why US corporations are laying off tens of thousands so they can fund record stock buybacks and enrich their shareholders - to boost profits so that more money can be channeled in the form of dividends. According to...

How much money did U.S. investors raid from the future following President Barack Obama's re-election on 6 November 2012? We've long noted the tax-avoidance motive that investors had for taking this action, as well as the factors that drove its timing, but we've never fully quantified just how much money was involved in the great dividend raid of 2012. Until today, that is! Our first chart shows how the amount of S&P 500 dividends per share expected to be paid out the fourth quarter of 2012 and the first three quarters of 2013 changed in the period from 21...

According to S&P's latest Monthly Dividend Action Report [Excel spreadsheet], the month of November 2012 was a record month that saw some 3,327 U.S. companies make some kind of declaration involving their dividends (that's not the record!) Here are the astounding numbers: 197 companies acted to increase their cash dividend in the 8th best month on record (since January 2004), and the most in any November on record. The all-time record for regular dividend increases announced in a single month is 246, which was set in February 2007. 228 companies acted to make a special cash dividend payment to their...

WASHINGTON - Did you see the story about Costco borrowing $3.5 billion to pay a special $7 a share dividend to its stockholders before year's end to avoid being hit by President Obama's higher tax on investors? What makes this story especially juicy is that it reveals how Obama's fat cat supporters, who bankrolled his bid for a second term and embraced his proposed tax increases, have taken steps to shield themselves from the president's "tax the rich" fiscal folly. The tax avoidance maneuver, which Forbes magazine calls "a six-year advance on the company's current annual dividend of $1.10 per...

The Board of Directors of The Washington Post Company (WPO) today announced ... an accelerated cash dividend ... This accelerated dividend is intended by the Board to be in lieu of regular quarterly dividends that the Company otherwise would have declared and paid in calendar year 2013

President Obama proposed tax hike contains a lot to dislike, but what hasn't gotten much attention is the tax hike on savings and investments. While the marginal income tax rate will rise from 35% to 39.6% for top income-earners and small business owners, the proposed tax hike on capital gains and dividends could cause the most long-term economic damage. That's not to downplay the rise in marginal rates. It could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next few years. More universally acknowledged by economists, however, is the economic harm that savings and investment taxes do. In the Tax...

President Obama on Monday reiterated his push to extend the Bush Tax cuts for the middle class but not the 2% of U.S. households making more than $250,000. But millions of middle class Americans are at risk of higher taxes if no action is taken before Jan. 1, notes Josh Brown, vice president of Fusion Analytics and author of The Reformed Broker blog. Specifically, Brown is concerned about the sharp rise in taxes on dividends and capital gains that will occur as part of the so-called fiscal cliff -- or "taxmageddon" if you prefer. If Congress fails to act, the...

If you haven't seen it, here's an eye opening chart from Goldman's Alec Phillips: Goldman Sachs For top earners, the tax rate on dividends is going to hit 43.4% if there are no changes in the current law. There are many layers to this whole "fiscal cliff" drama. The spending cuts are just one, but the potential hits to the economy are numerous, and this is just one example. Ultimately, says Philips: The most likely scenario in our view is an extension of these investment-related tax rates along with other expiring tax provisions into mid-2013, at which point broader reform...

Ever since Warren Buffett observed that his tax rate is unfairly low, President Obama keeps finding ways to get mileage out of his friend's lament. One of the president's recent proposals is to dramatically increase the tax rate on corporate dividends for upper-income shareholders. It may seem that Buffett has no dog in this fight, since the company he runs, Berkshire Hathaway, pays no dividends anyway. But that's not the whole story. Before 2003, when dividends were taxed at much higher rates, companies like Berkshire had a handy rationale for holding on to their shareholders' money indefinitely, claiming this was...

Gold and US Treasurys trading together illustrate the point that the BIG money has not begun to move and is still parking. Corporations are at record highs with over $2 trillion in cash holdings also parking in Treasurys fearful of investing with the future so uncertain. Those who try to predict the future with fundamentals get their head handed to them without exception because they become fixated largely on a couple of issues that are more often than not too domestic. Lacking worldly experience, they become just deer in headlights. A closing tomorrow on the Dow BELOW 10906 will warn...

Ten dividend-paying high quality stocks to consider are listed below: 1. Company: Westpac Banking Corp (WBK) Current Dividend Yield: 6.07% Sector: Banking Country: Australia 2. Company: Royal Bank Of Canada (RY) Current Dividend Yield: 3.48% Sector: Banking Country: Canada 3. Company: National Grid PLC (NGG) Current Dividend Yield: 4.41% Sector: Electric Utilities Country: U.K. 4. Company: Nextera Energy Inc (NEE) Current Dividend Yield: 4.02% Sector: Electric Utilities Country: U.S.A. 5. Company: Telecom Italia SpA (TI) Current Dividend Yield: 4.06 Sector: Telecom Country: Italy 6. Company: Banco Santander Chile (SAN) Current Dividend Yield: Banking Sector: 3.25% Country: Chile 7. Company: Telefonica...

BP directors will meet on Monday to discuss whether to suspend dividends to shareholders, the BBC has learned. Executives will then meet with US President Barack Obama on Wednesday, but no announcement on the payments is expected in the near future. BP has been under intense pressure from the US government, which wants BP to use the money to pay for the Gulf of Mexico clean-up. Meanwhile, BP's shares closed up 7.2%, recovering losses suffered on Thursday. "No announcement is expected for a while, but it is looking more likely that BP will cease paying the £1.8bn of dividends per...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in her sharpest rebuke yet of the oil industry, said BP should not make dividend payments to stockholders until those affected by the oil spill in the Gulf are made “whole.” “I’m saying that they should not be paying dividends until they make these people whole and make a better effort to do it in a timely fashion,” Pelosi told reporters Friday. “These people are coming to us and saying ‘I have to take out a loan,’ ... which I can ill-afford to repay because BP is not, you know, is not paying. BP has the...

With tax rates on track to surge next year, it may be time to cash out of dividend-paying stocks, reminds accountant Joe Kristan over at Going Concern. Taxpayers owning C corporation stock might also want to take a bullet, figuratively speaking, this year. That’s because the tax rate on dividends will either leap or soar in 2011. The increase in the dividend rate is a consequence of the scheduled expiration of the 2001 Bush tax cuts after this year.