Dividend decline

The dividend gravy train is slowing.

For years, companies have lavished ever-bigger payouts on their shareholders thanks to a run of record profits. In each of the last four years, total dividends paid by companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index jumped at least 10 percent.

But earnings are now plunging for energy and raw-materials businesses due to the collapse in commodities prices. Elsewhere, profit growth has slowed. That’s caused an uptick in the number of companies cutting or even halting their dividends. This year is the worst for such disappointing dividend actions since the economy was crawling out of the Great Recession in 2009. Through the first 11 months of this year, S&P Dow Jones Indices has counted 16 dividend cuts or suspensions for companies in the S&P 500. That’s nowhere close to the 78 tallied in 2009 during the aftermath of the financial crisis, but it’s double last year’s total.

It also doesn’t include several disappointing dividend moves made since the end of November. Miner Freeport-McMoRan suspended its payout, and pipeline operator Kinder Morgan slashed its payout 75 percent earlier this month.

Barclays strategists are forecasting dividend growth will fall to 5 percent next year for the S&P 500. That would be the weakest rate since 2010.