Sam Hartzmark on Dividends – Meb Faber Research – Stock Market and Investing Blog

Sam Hartzmark could be the most educated individual on irrational investor habits associated to dividends. Final week, he joined me on the podcast to stroll by a few of his analysis. We cowl some enjoyable subjects:

Juicing – Mutual funds buy shares earlier than dividend funds to artificially enhance their dividends
The Free Dividend Fallacy – Buyers monitoring capital beneficial properties and dividends as separate and unbiased variables, which is incorrect.
Indices Ignoring Dividends – The Dow and S&P 500 are sometimes cited as value indices (ignoring dividends), so traders deal with the worth change as the first sign.

You’ll be able to hear on Apple or Spotify, or watch on YouTube, and see all of Sam’s papers within the present notes.

Listed here are 10 dividend stats from Sam’s papers:

Shares of their “predicted dividend month” earn an irregular return of 1.5% to 2.0% increased than in non-dividend months.
Cumulative irregular returns (CAR) start to construct roughly 45 days previous to the ex-dividend date, peaking at 1.79% on common.
Buyers are keen to pay 15-20% increased expense ratios for a fund marketed as “Revenue” or “Dividend Targeted” in comparison with a total-return fund with similar holdings.
Some mutual funds buy shares earlier than dividend funds to artificially enhance their dividends.
Mutual funds that “juice” their yields (Extra Dividend Ratio > 1.38) see 6.8% increased capital inflows per 12 months. In the event that they juice extra aggressively (Ratio > 2.0), inflows bounce to 12.2% per 12 months.
On index ex-dividend days, information protection is considerably extra destructive as a result of reporters mistake the mechanical value drop for a destructive market occasion.
Mutual funds that beat the S&P 500 Worth Index (the “incorrect” benchmark for whole return) noticed a further 0.56% influx per 30 days in comparison with funds that matched the index however had a better whole return by way of dividends.
Demand for dividends is systematically increased in intervals of low rates of interest and poor market efficiency, resulting in decrease returns for dividend-paying shares.
In a single survey, 70% of members (together with MBA college students & professionals) failed to know {that a} inventory value should drop by the dividend quantity, viewing the cost as a substitute as a “bonus” return.
Measures of liquidity and demand for dividends are related to bigger value will increase within the interval earlier than the ex-day (when there isn’t any information concerning the dividend), and bigger reversals afterwards.