Tech Sector Boosted Dividends to Start 2021 In the first quarter of 2021, companies were 14 times more likely to have positively raised or initiated a dividend than negatively cut or suspended dividend payments. This was nearly triple the ratio from a year earlier.
Dividend growth returned in early 2021 as the economic impact of the pandemic began to ease. In the first three months of 2021, 906 U.S. companies either raised or initiated a dividend according to S&P Dow Jones Indices, up 24% from a year earlier as COVID-19 fears were first heating up. Meanwhile, the number of companies that either cut or suspended dividends fell by more than 50% to just 64. The 14-to-1 positive/negative ratio was much higher than way before the pandemic, with the 7-to-1 ratio in 2019 the recent high-water mark in the last six years. Among S&P 500 companies, there was just one dividend suspension in the first quarter of 2021, down from 10 a year earlier and 31 in the second quarter of 2021.
BlackRock is selling stakes in sanctioned Chinese mobile firms
Benjamin Robertson, Bloomberg News American flags fly at the entrance to BlackRock Inc. headquarters in New York, U.S, on on Thursday, July 9, 2020. BlackRock is scheduled to release earnings figures on July 17. , Bloomberg
BlackRock Inc. has been selling stakes in three Chinese telecommunication providers after the U.S. put them on its sanctions list.
The worldâs largest money manager reduced its holdings in China Mobile Ltd., China Telecom Corp. and China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd. in recent weeks and plans to keep selling, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. One of the biggest outside shareholders in the companies, BlackRock is responding to the executive order issued by President Donald Trump in November barring investments in companies deemed to be owned or controlled by Chinaâs military.