Dividend Policy Quotes

The current crisis has led to renewed discussions about a universal basic income, whereby all citizens receive an equal regular payment from the government, regardless of whether they work. The idea behind this policy is a good one, but the narrative would be problematic. Since a universal basic income is seen as a handout, it perpetuates the false notion that the private sector is the sole creator, not a co-creator, of wealth in the economy and that the public sector is merely a toll collector, siphoning off profits and distributing them as charity. A better alternative is a citizen’s dividend. Under this policy, the government takes a percentage of the wealth created with government investments, puts that money in a fund, and then shares the proceeds with the people. The idea is to directly reward citizens with a share of the wealth they have created. Alaska, for example, has distributed oil revenues to residents through an annual dividend from its Permanent Fund since 1982.

The five major sources of income which are exempt for NRIs are: Proceeds from Life Insurance Policy - provided the policy complies with the exemption criteria/conditions Dividend from a domestic company or mutual fund scheme - provided the company or mutual fund scheme has paid the Dividend Distribution Tax (DDT), if applicable Interest on an NRE account – provided the NRE account is maintained as per the FEMA rules Interest on FCNR or RFC accounts – provided the account owner is a non-resident or RBNOR under the Income Tax Act Long Term Capital Gain on equity and equity based mutual fund – provided the Security Transaction Tax (STT) has been paid

Hence, after this foreshortened discussion of the major considerations, we once again enunciate the same basic compromise policy for defensive investors—namely that at all times they have a significant part of their funds in bond-type holdings and a significant part also in equities. It is still true that they may choose between maintaining a simple 50–50 division between the two components or a ratio, dependent on their judgment, varying between a minimum of 25% and a maximum of 75% of either. We shall give our more detailed view of these alternative policies in a later chapter. Since at present the overall return envisaged from common stocks is nearly the same as that from bonds, the presently expectable return (including growth of stock values) for the investor would change little regardless of how he divides his fund between the two components. As calculated above, the aggregate return from both parts should be about 7.8% before taxes or 5.5% on a tax-free (or estimated tax-paid) basis. A return of this order is appreciably higher than that realized by the typical conservative investor over most of the long-term past. It may not seem attractive in relation to the 14%, or so, return shown by common stocks during the 20 years of the predominantly bull market after 1949. But it should be remembered that between 1949 and 1969 the price of the DJIA had advanced more than fivefold while its earnings and dividends had about doubled. Hence the greater part of the impressive market record for that period was based on a change in investors’ and speculators’ attitudes rather than in underlying corporate values. To that extent it might well be called a “bootstrap operation.” In

According to Amy Goodman, Gates owns investments in sixty-nine of the world’s worst-polluting companies.203 His single-minded obsession with vaccines seems to serve his impulse to monetize his charity and to achieve monopoly control over global public health policy. His strategies and corporate alliances in the food, public health, and education sectors may also reflect messianic conviction that he is ordained to save the world with technology, top-down centralized cookie-cutter solutions to complex human problems, and a godlike willingness to experiment with the lives of lesser humans. And Gates’s vaccine cartel has amassed Midas-like riches. Early in 2021, a TV interviewer, Becky Quick, observed that Gates had spent $10 billion on vaccines over the past two decades and asked Gates, “You’ve figured out the return on investment for that and it kind of stunned me. Can you walk us through the math?” Gates responded: “We see a phenomenal track record . . . there’s been over a 20-to-1 return. So if you just looked at the economic benefits, that’s a pretty strong number.” The interviewer pressed him: “If you had put that money into an S&P 500 and reinvested the dividends, you’d come up with something like $17 billion dollars, but you think it’s $200 billion dollars.” Gates continued: “Here, yeah,” hastening to add that “helping young children live, get the right nutrition, contribute to their countries, that has a payback that goes beyond any typical financial return.”204 The key to it all, he added, is “Having that big portfolio.” And the key to much of that portfolio is having Anthony Fauci.

Proprietorial PLCs - companies that are controlled or dominated by one family - have always fascinated me. I hold shares. I like the alignment of board and shareholder interests, the focus on conservative growth and "stewarding" a business through generations, their generally low borrowings and usually progressive dividend policy.

In the last 20 years the “profitable reinvestment” theory has been gaining ground. The better the past record of growth, the readier investors and speculators have become to accept a low-pay-out policy. So much is this true that in many cases of growth favorites the dividend rate—or even the absence of any dividend—has seemed to have virtually no effect on the market price.

First, the dividend return is relatively high. Second, the reinvested earnings are substantial in relation to the price paid and will ultimately affect the price. In a five-to seven-year period these advantages can bulk quite large in a well-selected list. Third, a bull market is ordinarily most generous to low-priced issues; thus it tends to raise the typical bargain issue to at least a reasonable level. Fourth, even during relatively featureless market periods a continuous process of price adjustment goes on, under which secondary issues that were undervalued may rise at least to the normal level for their type of security. Fifth, the specific factors that in many cases made for a disappointing record of earnings may be corrected by the advent of new conditions, or the adoption of new policies, or by a change in management.

was nice to know, as one executive assured us, that without the Recovery Act “the entire solar and wind industry in the U.S. would’ve probably been wiped out.” That didn’t stop me from wondering how long we could keep championing policies that paid long-term dividends but still somehow resulted in us getting clobbered over the head. —

If a connoisseur of the irony of political life is struck solemn by it, if he talks of tragic irony, then he is a ‘wet’ Machiavellian, a Christian. If he is fascinated by it, intellectually interested, he is a central Machiavellian, like the master himself. If he is amused by the irony of political life, he is an extreme Machiavellian, a cynic, a man who enjoys the sufferings and embarrassments of others. Just as Machiavellians do not understand the nature of tragedy, so Grotians are unable to understand the structure or texture of irony, which has several strands. The first is that of mere accident. Thus Cesare Borgia made many precautions against Alexander VI's death… Machiavelli recalls: ‘On the day that Julius II was elected, he told me that he had thought of everything that might occur at the death of his father, and had provided a remedy for all, except that he had never foreseen that, when the death did happen, he himself would be on the point to die... Another strand of historical irony is multiple or cumulative causation of a single result. Thus there were many mistakes in Louis XII's policy in Italy: he destroyed the small powers; aggrandized a greater power, the papacy; and called in a foreign power, Spain. He did not settle in Italy, nor send colonies to Italy, and he weakened the Venetians... A third strand is the single causation of opposite results, or paradox. Marxists like this notion: the bourgeoisie created simultaneously a single world economy and the extreme of international anarchy… A fourth strand of irony is self-frustration, or failure. Men intend one result and produce another... Japan, too, by attempting to conquer China, did much to make China instead of herself the future Great Power of the Orient... A fifth strand in historical irony is that the same policy, in different circumstances, will produce different effects... The sixth and last strand is that contrary policies, in different circumstances, can produce the same effects. This is discussed in an unintentionally amusing way in The Discourses (bk III), when Machiavelli discusses whether harsh methods or mild are the more efficacious. He lists examples where humanity, kindness, common decency, and generosity paid political dividends, including Fabricius' rejection of the offer to poison Pyrrhus. But Hannibal obtained fame and victory by exactly opposite methods: cruelty, violence, rapine, and perfidy.

Developing sound policies requires seeing natural resources as dividends of sustained ecosystem productivity rather than as a stockpile of assets.

According to dividend irrelevance theory, the only consideration that affects a company’s valuation is its earnings, which are a direct result of the company’s investment policy and the future prospects.

Over the past thirty years the orthodox view that the maximisation of shareholder value would lead to the strongest economic performance has come to dominate business theory and practice, in the US and UK in particular.42 But for most of capitalism’s history, and in many other countries, firms have not been organised primarily as vehicles for the short-term profit maximisation of footloose shareholders and the remuneration of their senior executives. Companies in Germany, Scandinavia and Japan, for example, are structured both in company law and corporate culture as institutions accountable to a wider set of stakeholders, including their employees, with long-term production and profitability their primary mission. They are equally capitalist, but their behaviour is different. Firms with this kind of model typically invest more in innovation than their counterparts focused on short-term shareholder value maximisation; their executives are paid smaller multiples of their average employees’ salaries; they tend to retain for investment a greater share of earnings relative to the payment of dividends; and their shares are held on average for longer by their owners. And the evidence suggests that while their short-term profitability may (in some cases) be lower, over the long term they tend to generate stronger growth.43 For public policy, this makes attention to corporate ownership, governance and managerial incentive structures a crucial field for the improvement of economic performance. In short, markets are not idealised abstractions, but concrete and differentiated outcomes arising from different circumstances.

I was autographing books at one of those little rattan tables in the bookstore when I found myself looking into the saddest eyes I had ever seen. “The doctor wanted me to buy something that would make me laugh,” she said. I hesitated about signing the book. It would have taken corrective surgery to make that woman laugh. “Is it a big problem?” I asked. The whole line of people was eavesdropping. “Yes. My daughter is getting married.” The line cheered. “Is she twelve or something?” “She’s twenty-four,” said the woman, biting her lip. “And he’s a wonderful man. It’s just that she could have stayed home a few more years.” The woman behind her looked wistful. “We’ve moved three times, and our son keeps finding us. Some women have all the luck.” Isn’t it curious how some mothers don’t know when they’ve done a good job or when it’s basically finished? They figure the longer the kids hang around, the better parents they are. I guess it all depends on how you regard children in the first place. How do you regard yours? Are they like an appliance? The more you have, the more status you command? They’re under warranty to perform at your whim for the first 18 years; then, when they start costing money, you get rid of them? Are they like a used car? You maintain it for years, and when you’re ready to sell it to someone else, you feel a great responsibility to keep it running or it reflects on you? (That’s why some parents never let their children marry good friends.) Are they like an endowment policy? You invest in them for 18 or 20 years, and then for the next 20 years they return dividends that support you in your declining years or they suffer from terminal guilt? Are they like a finely gilded mirror that reflects the image of its owner in every way? On the day the owner looks in and sees a flaw, a crack, a distortion, one tiny idea or attitude that is different from his own, he casts it aside and declares himself a failure? I see children as kites. You spend a lifetime trying to get them off the ground. You run with them until you’re both breathless...they crash...you add a longer tail...they hit the rooftop...you pluck them out of the spout. You patch and comfort, adjust and teach. You watch them lifted by the wind and assure them that someday they’ll fly. Finally they are airborne, but they need more string so you keep letting it out. With each twist of the ball of twine there is a sadness that goes with the joy, because the kite becomes more distant, and somehow you know it won’t be long before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that bound you together and soar as it was meant to soar—free and alone. Only then do you know that you did your job.

Questions to ask when analyzing a business Business - How does the company make money? - Does it seem like it should be a good business? Is it competitive? Do suppliers have too much power? Do customers value the product? Are there substitutes? - Without looking at financials, how does the company seem like it has done against competitors in its industry in terms of executing on its vision? - What reputation does the management team have? Do they seem honest? Straightforward? Valuation - What is the company's P/E multiple? Is it high or low for its industry? For the overall market right now? Why might the stock be trading at this valuation? - What is the company's free-cash flow yield? Is this a relevant metric given the stage the company is in? How does it compare to similar companies? - Is the company growing faster or more slowly than other companies with similar multiples? - Based on the number alone, does the company seem to have a rich valuation or a cheap valuation? Why might this be the case? Financials - What has been the trajectory of revenue growth over the past ten years? Why? What is it expected to do in the future? - How has the company's industry been growing? Is the company gaining or losing share in its industry? - What is the company’s level of profit margins? How does it compare to other companies in its industry? - How have margins varied over the past ten years? Why? - What percentage  of the company's costs are fixed costs versus variable costs? - What is the company's historical return on capital? Why is it high/low? What does this say about the quality of the business? - What is the trend in returns on capital? Why? What does this say about the returns the company will have to make on its future investments? - What is the company's dividend policy? Why? If they are paying no dividend or a small dividend, is there a danger that the company's management will waste shareholder's money? Technical - How have the company's shares performed against the overall market and its industry over the past twelve months? - What seems to be driving this under/over performance? - What key news events are likely to impact the stock in the future? - Do mutual funds and other large institutional investors seem to be buying or selling the shares? Sentiment and Expectations - What are the consensus earnings estimates for the next quarter and year? Do they seem aggressive or conservative? - Does consensus opinion seem overly bullish or bearish about the company's future prospects? - What insight do you have that the market might be missing that will cause the shares to appreciate?