Standard & Poor's announced that 1,857 of the approximately 7,000 publicly owned companies that report dividend information to Standard & Poor's Dividend Record increased their dividend in 2007, representing a 5.7% decrease from the 1,969 issues that raised their dividend in 2006.


"The decline in dividend increases reflects the current trend of favoring stock buybacks at the expense of committing to long-term cash dividends," says Howard Silverblatt, Senior Index Analyst at Standard & Poor's.

Standard & Poor's Dividend Record also shows that for the fourth quarter of 2007, dividend increases declined 10.6% to 432 from the 483 recorded during the fourth quarter of 2006. Overall, the number of dividend payments in 2007 increased by 1.9%, but declined in the fourth quarter by 1.0%.

Additionally, Standard & Poor's data reveals that negative actions - such as dividend decreases and suspensions - picked up in 2007 amidst heightened concern over the current difficulties within the Financials and Consumer Discretionary sectors. Dividend extras - such as one-time dividend payments and special dividends - increased 1.0% (versus 14.3% in 2006) to 628 from 622 during 2006.

Standard & Poor's Silverblatt notes that, while dividend increases within the general market have declined, over 60% of the S&P 500 companies increased their dividend payment in 2007. In addition, Silverblatt estimates that S&P 500 dividend payments will increase 9.3% in 2008.

"History shows that S&P 500 issues have a greater likelihood to pay dividends than the general market, 78% versus less than 39% for the general market," adds Silverblatt. "In addition, S&P 500 issues have a much greater propensity to increase their dividend rate than the general market."