Record Number Of Dividend Cuts But Is It REALLY That Bad?

S&P reported today that for the first time in their tracking history (since 1955) dividend decreases outpaced dividend increases.

7,000 firms report dividend information to S&P according to the article, here are the interesting facts:

• 367 Reduced dividends in the first quarter... 367/7,000 = 5%
• 283 Increased dividends in the first quarter ... 283/7,000 = 4%

While we agree that year over year the huge increase in dividend reductions and the huge decrease in dividend increases is alarming, it still represents a very small percentage of the total which seems to imply most stocks did NOT reduce their dividend according to this data. That's actually good news.. wow.. sure would have been nice to provide a list of the 283 firms increasing dividends recently.

See more on dividend increases here.