📅 On This Day
Smoot-Hawley Tariff Signing Triggers Global Dividend Massacre in 1930
On June 17, 1930, President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, raising duties on over 20,000 imported goods and igniting immediate retaliation from trading partners worldwide. U.S. exports plummeted 61% as a protectionist spiral took hold, gutting the profit margins of export-heavy industrials and agricultural firms. For dividend investors, the fallout was devastating — a multi-year wave of suspensions and corporate bankruptcies that deepened the Great Depression.
A single stroke of a pen in 1930 showed how trade policy can silence dividends as swiftly as any recession.
🇺🇸 US
Source: Public Law 71-361, 46 Stat. 590 (Tariff Act of 1930); U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian
🌍 Around the World
Netherlands Keeps Dividend Withholding Simple at Flat 15%
The Netherlands applies a 15% withholding tax on dividends to non-residents — and unusually, the U.S.-Netherlands tax treaty doesn't reduce that rate further. What you see is what you get: 15% withheld, no reclaim filing required, and the full amount recoverable via IRS Form 1116 in taxable accounts. In IRAs, however, that 15% is permanently lost, making Dutch holdings a mid-tier cost among European markets for retirement accounts.
For Dutch ADRs like ASML or ING, predictability is the quiet advantage — no reclaim paperwork, no treaty surprises.
🇳🇱 NL
Source: PwC Tax Summaries; Tax Foundation Europe
🔥 Dividend Streak
GM's Dividend Streak Didn't Just End — Bankruptcy Erased the Shares
General Motors, long a pillar of the Dow and a reliable income name, suspended its dividend in 2008 as the financial crisis and collapsing auto sales drained its coffers. What followed wasn't a typical cut: GM filed for bankruptcy in 2009, and legacy common shares were wiped out entirely under the Motors Liquidation Company restructuring. A new GM eventually emerged with government backing and didn't reinstate a dividend until 2014 — but original shareholders received nothing.
GM is the cautionary archetype: streak risk isn't just a smaller check — sometimes it's a zero and no shares left.
GM — General Motors Company
🇺🇸 US
Source: CNNMoney; GM bankruptcy filings
💡 Did You Know
Reinvested Dividends Drive 85% of S&P 500 Returns Since 1960
A $10,000 investment in the S&P 500 in 1960, with dividends never reinvested, would have grown to roughly $982,000 by 2024. Reinvest those same dividends, and the figure rises to approximately $6.4 million — a difference of more than $5.4 million generated quietly in the background while price charts grabbed the headlines. Compounding, it turns out, is less a financial concept and more a force of nature.
Price appreciation gets the glory; reinvested dividends do the actual heavy lifting over the long run.
🇺🇸 US
Source: Hartford Funds, 'The Power of Dividends' (2024 edition)