Improved Outlook for Dividends in 2020 Powers S&P 500 Upward

Two months ago, we featured the first look at what dividend futures were forecasting for the S&P 500 (Index: SPX) in each quarter of 2020.

Two months later, we’re updating that outlook because investor expectations for the future have changed rather dramatically, which we’ve presented in the animated chart. If you’re accessing this article on a site that republishes our RSS news feed and you don’t see the chart change every 3-4 seconds, please click through to our site to see the animation below.

Most of that change has taken place during the last three weeks, since 21 October 2019. The change coincides with the bulk of S&P 500 firm earnings reports, which have been generally positive and which have helped power the S&P 500 to new record highs.

In the chart above, the “past” quarterly dividend futures is the last value we recorded for the CME Group’s quarterly dividends per share futures for the S&P 500 before their related contracts expired on the third Friday of the month ending the indicated quarters. The “projected” quarterly dividend futures are what the CME Group’s site reports for the S&P 500 as of the close of trading on 6 November 2019.