A dividend is a portion of a company’s profit paid back to shareholders. In most cases, companies that issue a dividends are financially stable. Many of these companies are in mature industries and have predictable revenue and earnings. Utility stocks and consumer discretionary stocks are good examples of companies that traditionally pay dividends.
As an investor, you can choose from many dividend stocks. One way to compare companies involves looking at dividend yield and calculating the yield of your stock investments in order to make investment decisions. To find the dividend yield, follow these steps:
- Find the company's annual dividends using the search function in the calculator above, or by entering them yourself.
- If a company's dividends aren't annual, the calculator will multiply the dividend per period by the number of payments in a year in order to find the annual dividends.
- If you’ve searched for a stock using the calculator’s search function, the share price will be automatically populated. Otherwise, you can enter the share price yourself.
- Using the formula Dividend Yield = Current Annual Dividend Per Share/Current Stock Price, we’ll show you the dividend yield for your selected stock.
