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.