March is just around the corner — one of the big months for dividend stocks. Many blue-chip companies will send payments to shareholders next month, providing them with passive income that they can cash out or use to compound their returns.
Below are some of NerdWallet’s most popular dividend investing articles:
Blue-chip dividend dates in March
The table below shows upcoming dividend payments by companies with market caps above $200 billion:
Source: TipRanks. Data is current as of Feb. 11, 2025, and is intended for informational purposes only. Yields may fluctuate with stock prices.
What are dividends?
Dividends are payments that some publicly-traded companies send to shareholders, representing a portion of the company’s profits. Some dividend stocks pay out quarterly, others pay out annually or semiannually, and a few even pay out monthly.
Dividend stocks work just like any other stock. They represent fractional ownership shares of a company, and their price may increase over time, creating capital gains for shareholders. But they also provide passive income.
A stock’s annual dividend payout is the dollar sum of its dividends per share over the last 12 months. Its dividend yield — the percentage shown in the table above — is its annual dividend payout divided by its market price.
Shareholders can collect their dividends, and if they’re wealthy enough, they may be able to live off of dividend income alone. But they can also reinvest their dividends into the stock, juicing their returns with the power of compound interest.
But dividends aren’t guaranteed free money. Companies aren’t legally obligated to pay dividends, and if they’re in poor shape, they may slash or even discontinue their dividend payout. A high dividend yield can sometimes be a sign of financial distress, as investors often sell down dividend stocks they don’t think can pay reliably.
The Dividend Aristocrats are a group of S&P 500 stocks that have raised their dividend payouts every year for at least 25 years. They may not have the highest yields in the stock market, but their dividend payouts are seen as fairly reliable.
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Neither the author nor editor owned positions in the aforementioned investments at the time of publication.