The number of dividend cuts and suspensions announced by publicly traded firms in the United States has soared during April 2020 in one of the worst single months for dividend-paying firms in stock market history.
The following chart shows the classic recessionary sign of the number of dividend reduction announcements crossing over and exceeding the number of dividend increases in April 2020, the first time that has occurred since the so-called "Great Recession".
All of the numbers in the April 2020's dividend metadata are bad:
- A total of 3,092 U.S. firms declared dividends in April