📅 On This Day
FDR's 1933 Gold Clause Ban Rewrites Dividend History Forever
On June 5, 1933, President Roosevelt signed Joint Resolution 192, voiding 'gold clauses' embedded in countless corporate bonds and preferred stocks. Where investors once held a legal right to dividends payable in physical gold or its precise equivalent, they now received devalued paper dollars instead. The stroke saved heavily indebted corporations from immediate collapse, but it permanently eroded the real purchasing power of those historic income streams.
A single resolution ended a golden promise that generations of fixed-income investors had counted on.
🇺🇸 US
Source: Public Law 73-10, 48 Stat. 112 (Joint Resolution of June 5, 1933); Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 294 U.S. 240 (1935)
🌍 Around the World
Poland's Dividend Culture Blooms From a 1991 Fresh Start
The Warsaw Stock Exchange relaunched in 1991 after the communist era, giving Poland a dividend market younger than most of its Western European peers. Investors generally face around 19% withholding on dividends, though treaty relief may be available depending on residency. Standout income names include the venerable Bank Pekao (founded 1929), PKO Bank Polski, and copper-and-silver giant KGHM — whose payouts can swing dramatically with commodity cycles.
Treaty paperwork can matter a great deal when Poland's ~19% withholding rate is in play.
🇵🇱 PL
Source: Warsaw Stock Exchange; PwC Tax Summaries
🔥 Dividend Streak
Kodak's Century of Dividends Ends Where Its Own Invention Began
Eastman Kodak, founded in 1888, delivered dividends to shareholders for more than a century and ranked among the ten largest S&P 500 companies as recently as the 1980s. A Kodak engineer actually built the first digital camera in 1975 — yet the company chose to shield its film franchise rather than embrace the technology. As digital photography erased the film business, the cash engine behind the dividend collapsed; Kodak cut its payout in 2003, suspended it entirely on April 30, 2009, and filed for bankruptcy in 2012.
A dominant brand and 100+ years of payments proved no match for the disruption Kodak itself invented.
KODK — Eastman Kodak Co
🇺🇸 US
Source: Eastman Kodak SEC filing (8-K, April 30, 2009); Seeking Alpha
💡 Did You Know
Where a Stock Trades Is Not Where Its Dividend Is Taxed
Withholding tax on dividends follows a company's tax residence, not the exchange where its shares happen to trade. A stock listed in London might be tax-resident elsewhere entirely, and an ADR trading in New York carries withholding rules tied to the underlying company's home country. For international dividend investors, the essential question is always where the dividend is legally sourced — and what treaty documentation may reduce the bill.
For cross-border income, 'Where does it trade?' matters far less than 'Where is the company's tax home?'
Source: PwC Tax Summaries; OECD Model Tax Convention