📅 On This Day
A Single Faulty Update Brings Global Finance and Travel to Its Knees
On July 19, 2024, a defective CrowdStrike software update crashed roughly 8.5 million Windows systems worldwide, plunging banks, hospitals, and airlines into chaos. Delta Air Lines alone estimated losses exceeding $500 million from flight cancellations. For dividend investors holding those blue-chip names, the episode was a sobering reminder that third-party software risk can become a full operational crisis — invisibly, and without warning.
One cybersecurity vendor, one update, one very expensive morning for dividend-paying companies everywhere.
CRWD — Crowdstrike Holdings Inc
🇺🇸 US
Source: Wikipedia; TechCrunch
📅 On This Day
A Single Faulty Update Brings Global Finance and Travel to Its Knees
On July 19, 2024, a defective CrowdStrike software update crashed roughly 8.5 million Windows systems worldwide, plunging banks, hospitals, and airlines into chaos. Delta Air Lines alone estimated losses exceeding $500 million from flight cancellations. For dividend investors holding those blue-chip names, the episode was a sobering reminder that third-party software risk can become a full operational crisis — invisibly, and without warning.
One cybersecurity vendor, one update, one very expensive morning for dividend-paying companies everywhere.
CRWD — CrowdStrike CDR (CAD Hedged)
🇺🇸 US
Source: Wikipedia; TechCrunch
🌍 Around the World
Philippine REITs Deliver Rich Yields, but the Taxman Arrives First
The Philippines imposes a 25% withholding tax on dividends paid to non-resident aliens — among the highest default rates in Asia — and treaty-based relief is available only through a notoriously slow reclaim process. Within that high-friction environment, PH-REITs stand out: mandated by law to distribute at least 90% of distributable income on a quarterly schedule, they offer yields of 6–8%. Investors should also note that Philippine conglomerates like SM and Ayala frequently pay dividends in new shares, which can complicate cost-basis tracking.
High mandatory payouts and high withholding taxes make the Philippines a market that rewards patient, well-prepared income investors.
🇵🇭 PH
Source: PwC Philippines withholding tax summary; Republic Act 9856 (PH-REIT Act)
🔥 Dividend Streak
Same Oil Crash, Four Majors — and Two Very Different Dividend Decisions
The 2020 pandemic demand collapse hit every integrated oil major simultaneously, yet the boardroom responses could not have been more different. Shell cut its dividend for the first time since World War II and BP halved its payout, while ExxonMobil — carrying roughly 42 years of consecutive increases — and Chevron, at roughly 37 years, chose to protect their streaks and hold their Dividend Aristocrat status. One macro shock, one sector, two philosophies.
A streak is ultimately a balance-sheet decision, not an industry destiny — Big Oil's 2020 split proves it.
Source: The Motley Fool; CNBC; company filings
💡 Did You Know
Preferred Stock, Same Instrument — Two Eras, Two Very Different Prices
When U.S. Steel issued preferred stock in 1901, it paid a 7% coupon — generous for its moment, but reflecting a blue-sky industrial merger at the dawn of American corporate scale. When Warren Buffett agreed to buy Goldman Sachs preferred stock in 2008, he charged 10% — a crisis premium that signaled just how urgently Goldman needed a credibility lifeline. That three-percentage-point gap between the two moments tells you almost everything about how preferred-stock pricing really works: the instrument is the same; the price of capital is what changes.
The coupon on a preferred share is less about the company and more about the moment it was born into.
🇺🇸 US
Source: Finaeon; Goldman Sachs