Dividends are a company's optional distribution of (typically) cash to stockholders and provide another way to earn money from investing beyond growing the value of one's portfolio.
A dividend is defined as "a sum of money paid regularly (typically quarterly) by a company to its shareholders out of its profits (or reserves)".
A dividend yield is an expression of the dividend amount relative to the company's current share price. You can calculate the current dividend yield for a given year by dividing the total dividend paid for that year or the following year (or any 12 month period) by the current stock price.
Some companies regularly pay out a cash dividend and can make their stock more attractive by doing so. Johnson Controls (JCI) for instance, has managed to pay a quarterly dividend every year since 1887. They paid a total dividend of $1.04 in 2018 and the stock price as of today is $31.21.
There are two ways to calculate a company's current dividend yield: (1) by using what are called "forward dividends" or (2) by using "trailing dividends". Trailing uses the preceeding 12 months while forward uses the expected payouts in the proceeding 12 months. As of today (1/2/2019) using trailing dividends, or to be more clear- in relation to their 2018 total dividend payout"- JCI's dividend yield was:
$1.04 / $31.21
...or 3.3%.
As you can see from the charts above, General Electric and Honeywell have paid out cash dividends consistently for years. But GE has recently clawed back these payouts dramatically. This is probably due to GE's ongoing restructuring and spin-off efforts.
Reference:
https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/jci/dividend-history
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