You Asked, We Answered: Dividend Chart Improvements

10th Apr by Alex Naamani

27 comments 2891 reads

Investors hunting for income from stocks should pay attention to the frequency, consistency and growth of company dividends - all of which can be found in the dividends tab of each company’s StockReport. Using this information –alongside profitability figures which show how well covered and reliable a company’s dividend is– investors can decide whether a stock fits their investment strategy and is a positive contributor to their portfolio.

With that in mind, we wanted to let you know about some recent improvements to our dividend tool, following feedback from the community.

You asked to make it easier to read the bar charts

“The bar charts display varying currencies, showing dollars for certain payments and sterling for others. This inconsistency distorts the chart.”

Let’s take a look at Experian (LON:EXPN). The company typically pays dividends in US dollars, but occasionally pays them in UK sterling. Previously, this caused problems on the chart. The sterling amount was expressed in the pence minor unit (13.91p) whereas the dollar amount was expressed in the major unit ($0.18). The chart tool assumed both values to be in the same currency and this distorted the display. Notice how the pence value was unrealistically big...

We answered

We now display the dividends in one consistent currency - i.e. the modal currency. If a company usually pays dividends in dollars, but occasionally pays them in sterling, then the chart will plot all values in dollars.

It’s also worth taking a look at HSBC (LON:HSBA), which reports dividends in three currencies, UK sterling, US dollar and Hong Kong dollar. Our table displays a mix of sterling and dollar, but the chart normalises all dividends to the same currency, for ease of comparison.

How to use this information

The dividend bar chart is best used in conjunction with the main StockReport. Whereas the chart helps investors analyse dividend trends over time, the StockReport can be used to ascertain how safe a dividend is. Let’s take a look at some useful metrics.

Dividend cover

Dividend cover is calculated by dividing the company's earnings by the dividends per share. A larger value suggests that the company…

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Steve Artingstall

10th Apr

What about total return price charts for stocks and indices? Any chance of adding this feature?

Alex Naamani

Hi Steve - It is something on our radar, yes. I can't promise an ETA though, I'm afraid.

Sagie5

11th Apr

Thanks!!

Good to see the Free Cashflow ps and the dividend ps near each other

Helps a lot

ButeGolfer

There are a number of comments below on the lack of quality action from customer service via the green button. I used the button to raise a complaint on the stock report of ferrexpo showing 2.66% yield when they last paid a divi in Jul 22 - 2 years ago!

I received the following reply four weeks ago.

Hi there,

Thanks for getting in touch.

We are currently investigating the dividend issue surrounding @Ferrexpo with our data providers.

We'll be sure to let you know once this has been resolved.

Kind regards,Keelan

It is still the same this morning.

Keelan Cooper

Hi ButeGolfer,

We will follow up on this. I'll be in touch via Support to let you know once fixed.

Best,
Keelan

ken mitchell

Howard.

I used to think much as you do, but at last saw the light a few years ago when discovering that Lord John Lee gets 100% and more back every year on a lot of the shares he holds, just in dividends.

Already after only a few years of focusing on dividend income I’m now getting so many in dividends every year that they now pay for a lot of our new share and Investment Trust buys. I.e before much longer the portfolios become self financing. I hold Investment Trusts paying up to 20% a year in dividends. (There’s a very good Investment Trust thread on Stockopedia btw).

Another BIG plus is that there is big income during bear markets to compensate for capital losses. So less worry than non dividend payers we hold.

And although there has been a useful recovery recently, thanks to the UK Market being SO unloved, there are quality shares and Investment Trusts paying extraordinarily high dividends. That high yield should, if the UK Market ever comes back in to favour, lead to significant share price gains, as yields return to the levels in the past.

Just a couple of examples from my portfolio are Legal & General (LON:LGEN) and TP Icap (LON:TCAP) both bought on market dips. Legal & General (LON:LGEN) dividend yield at my 155p buy price is around 13% AND there’s a 50% capital gsin on top.

TP Icap (LON:TCAP) (like LGEN it is not a growth share) I luckily bought at the £1.02 bottom only a couple of years ago. They recently announced a big dividend increase and the yield is 15% a year already. AND the capital gain is already around 115%.

The 100% a year from dividends that John Lee and similar investors get is GROWTH BIG TIME! And that’s before including the share having multi (and sometimes multi multi) bagged.

It’s surprising how few small investors cotton on to this. I read it and ignored it for over 20 years!

jjis

'Seems like a good update thanks. Something like TBC Bank (LON:TBCG) still looks odd on historic & forthcoming being in different currencies still nut mostly £ but gel on stock report.

Related but odd & annoying some stocks seem to show odd dividend data when they pass their FY date & report a final which is yet to go XD or be paid. Your system seems to be double counting some of these somewhere into the year just gone making it look like they will cut the dividend in Y1 when in fact they are forecast to increase the dividend see IMI (LON:IMI) for example.

Indie

Hi ken mitchell, you've inspired me to have another read of Roland's article from November 5 simple rules to find good dividend stocks. I clicked through to the screen he created to see what is currently on it, and there are indeed a fair number of shares that I own/have owned/have considered because of wanting capital growth. It turns out they pay decent dividends too.

When I sell a share, I first work out the gain/loss based on money out and in when I bought and sold (so fees, tax etc are taken into account), then add in dividends, which can make quite a difference. I don't currently take dividends into account when I screen for stocks, but I think you're right - I should start to. Your comment 'before much longer the portfolios become self financing' is quite an eye-opener.

Hi Stockopedia team, another suggestion to make stock analysis easier...

When I go to Transactions in a folio and use the filters, I want to be able to download just the filtered results. At the moment, Download produces everything that has ever happened, which isn't useful.

For example, when I sell a stock, I go to Transactions and filter for it under Security. I then have to manually type the transactions into a calculator to work out whether I'm up or down. If only the filtered results were downloaded, I could let the spreadsheet do the work.

I've also submitted this in Learn under Product Roadmap and Submit Idea.

Keelan.

It’s disappointing that threads like this one and most threads get little support and almost to the extent that it is not worth bothering to post on them.

e.g I did a post here today. It eventually got 3 thumbs up and 1 reply. I decided to post it on the Small Company Value Report bb as well, and there it got 68 thumbs up and 13 replies, and some excellent replies too.

The Small Company thread with the superb analysis from Paul and Graham is deservedly very popular with Stockopedia subscribers. But it seems a lot of subscribers aren’t even aware of other good threads. Is that because of the way they log in to Stockopedia?

Is there any chance of you and your team acknowledging this situation and trying to do something about it. e.g via an email to all subscribers advertising good threads including those lead by Stockopedia staff like Megan Boxall?

E.g this weekly thread initiated by Megan. It has only got 7 replies!!

https://www.stockopedia.com/co...

Also it’s extremely difficult to find past posts and threads soon get lost unless/until there is a new post. Is there any chance of that being addressed/improved? Or is it that the bulletin boards are just seen as a bonus extra in addition to the many other valuable features on Stockopedia?

af20001

Agreed, having categories for posts, or the ability to bookmark topics would be a big improvement.

sharw

12th Apr

Ken - I very much agree with your thoughts and feel that it has got much worse in the last 6 months. There are a number of reasons for this:

1) there are too many people who go straight to SCVR not realising that there is anything else. I once pointed to a non-SCVR post to someone and they thanked me for suggesting that they came in via https://www.stockopedia.com/di... as they always came in straight to SCVR and were not aware of other posts. Even if you come in via the home page you get:

followed by others.

2) the simple fact is that if you post on SCVR you know you will have the maximum audience. Having subscribed some years ago I feel there has been a marked deterioration in comments recently. No longer are they on the small companies that have reported that day but about anything from the state of people's portfolios to various macro, including political, factors. SCVR is no longer that - it is the place to post your thoughts on anything.

3) The chronological listing of discussions means that things rapidly go out of sight. A good example is "Why has xyz gone down 5% this morning?" That happens a lot with small caps! - I class that comment as an ADVFN board one. That got really bad earlier in the year and on 29/2 rmillaree started a post headed "shares that have drifted down in price recently for no reason (or have not risen) thread". Excellent, but once it has sunk a little on the list it gets lost. I had to scroll a long way down late this evening to find it but probably wouldn't in the day because the list keeps updating and sending me back to the top. So on today's SCVR we have 8 posts on Shoe Zone because it fell (6.5% on the day) yet no trading RNS since 12/3 (AGM statement). I resent having to scroll through these. I hold Aviva that fell 6.35% on the day but did not post that for someone to tell me it was because it was xd.

4) I would also add that the SCVR is also now a pain to read because, despite the request in the standard heading, people will not name the company they are talking about. I blame Stocko for this - on the new site they made threaded the default so newcomers are not aware that there are other options for reading comments. Could you please make oldest first non-threaded the default so that those who go to threaded are aware?

doctor dave

Perhaps Stocko could try introducing a page for each stock in addition to the excellent SCVR (which has by default become the "anything I want to say today" place). It would be excellent for example to be able to follow a full thread on e.g Centamin (LON:CEY). I know we can do this ourselves but the indexing means they disappear from view quickly.

Overall Stocko is brilliant by the way.

Howard Adams

Hi Ken

Thanks for your very informative post. I will take your advice seriously and research this investing style more deeply. I am currently only 30% invested and have been pondering where to begin to allocate further funds. Your advice is a good suggestion.

Many thanks

Howard

sharew

Excellent post as it sums it all up so well.

An obvious thing to do would be to post about this, including the section on the way the majority log in, which means that they might only be aware of the Small Cap discussion threads. Posting there means at once a lot more Small Cap readers will be aware of threads that might well interest them. E.g look at the response to just one post on dividends there yesterday.

I’m willing to do that post but you seem much better informed than me on all this so it would be good if you could IF you think it’s a good idea. Maybe with most of the content of your post here.

This link could also be posted as it shows all the threads:-

https://www.stockopedia.com/di...

One work-around that seems to work well is to put a short comment in the SCVR with a link to the separate post. Megan does this with the Week Ahead, and Tamzin does it with PI World posts.

(... but it would be better if a work-around weren't needed.)

15th Apr

Ken - thanks for your kind reply. I have posted on SCVR this morning.

Thanks for following up the suggestion with your excellent post and links on the Small Cap bb this morning. I’ve now posted there too, adding to your post and to provide support for it and to try somehow to get the message across about a better way to access this site.

EDIT.

The post got an immediate hostile reply from BnB. That’s good as posts like his draw attention to our posts!

reisereise

Fri 4:00pm

This!!!

Fri 5:55pm

Why have the #ELIX 2023 dividends go AWOL from the stock report?

You asked, we answered: Dividend chart improvements

You asked to make it easier to read the bar charts

We answered

How to use this information

Dividend cover

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About the Author

Alex Naamani

27 comments

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