Dividend delving: which companies are ramping up the pay-outs quickest?
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Mining companies dominate the list of blue-chip companies that have ramped up their dividend payments.
In this never-ending low-interest-rate environment, Peel Hunt has once again asked the evergreen question: where to find the best dividends?
“With the dust settling a bit on the pandemic, we are now able to see what the dividend profile looks like for much of the market in the next couple of years,” the broker said in a research note.
The broker reckons this year will see companies pay out an aggregate of £100bn or so in dividends, down from around £121bn in 2018 (before the dreaded coronavirus reared its ugly head).
What’s the best way to play the copper market, now that prices have surged to new ten-year highs?
Copper is often said to be the bellwether of the global economy
It was interesting to see in a recent report from Goldman Sachs the comment, presented almost as an aside, that the major copper companies it was analysing had collectively outperformed the copper price by 34% over the past 12 months, in spite of the fact that copper itself had been on a tear.
The comment lies at the basis of a truism well-known to investors in the mining sector: mining companies in any given commodity always outperform basic metals prices during a bull run.
21 April 2021 | 07:44am
StockMarketWire.com - Mining company Antofagasta kept its output guidance unchanged despite a fall in production in Q1, and a lockdown in Chile that threatens to disrupt activity.
Major maintenance at Los Pelambres originally planned for Q2 was under review, so that some of the non-critical activities could be rescheduled to later in 2021 following a Covid-19 national lockdown in Chile, the company said.
Full year guidance was unchanged at 730-to-760,000 tonnes of copper at a net cash cost of $1.25 per pound and capital expenditure of $1.6 billion.
Copper production in Q1 2021 was in line with guidance at 183,000 tonnes, but 5.7% lower than in the same quarter in 2020 and 5.0% lower than in Q4 2020 mainly due to expected reduced grades at Los Pelambres, the company said.
21 April 2021 | 12:01pm
StockMarketWire.com - The FTSE 100 made a modest recovery on Wednesday after Tuesday s big sell-off gaining 0.5% to 6,894.47 with big oil companies helping to support the index.
The UK consumer price index rose 0.7% in March from 0.4% in February, indicating the economy was on the mend though the market had expected an even stronger reading, of 0.8%.
BHP gained 1.3% to £21.945 after it upgraded its annual copper production guidance, though it also downgraded its guidance for both metallurgical and energy coal.
The world s biggest mining company kept its guidance for petroleum and iron-ore intact, with output of the latter rising 4% in the nine months through March.
16 March 2021 | 12:08pm
StockMarketWire.com - The FTSE 100 was back above 6,800 by Tuesday lunchtime as sterling weakness and US stimulus optimism helped lift the index. At midday the index was up 0.9% to 6,809.61.
Bakery chain Greggs rallied 4.7% to £23.15, even as it reported its first loss as public company, but voiced optimism, saying it had made a better-than-expected start to 2021.
Greggs continued to keep its dividend suspended, saying it would need to return to a level of profitability and cash generation sufficient to resume payouts.
Natwest, the bank formally known as Royal Bank of Scotland, slipped 1.1% to 186.5p on confirming that UK authorities had launched criminal proceedings against it over historic allegations of money laundering.