GOOGL - Dividend Watch: Your Move Amazon

2024-04-26 09:15:00 ET

It's probably time for Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) to consider offering a dividend. I'm not the first person to suggest that quarterly distributions should be the online retailer's prime objective, but the suggestions will only get louder now that Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) has hopped on the payout bandwagon.

Alphabet turned heads on Thursday afternoon by initiating a quarterly dividend of $0.20 a share. While that translates to a yield of a mere 0.5%, it's not the point. Alphabet, with its $2 trillion market cap, is no longer the most valuable U.S.-listed company that doesn't shell out a regular distribution. Amazon is wearing that badge now.

There's nothing wrong with Amazon ignoring the calls that have driven many of the country's most valuable tech stocks to declare dividends. None of the four companies with loftier market caps are yielding more than 0.7%, a pittance these days, with the top money market funds returning better than 5%.

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