📅 On This Day
England Trades Manhattan for Nutmeg — and Calls It a Win
In the Treaty of Breda in 1667, the Dutch handed England a fur-trading outpost called New Amsterdam — what we now know as Manhattan — and walked away with Run, a tiny island in the Banda archipelago prized for nutmeg. At the time, the Dutch arguably had the better argument: nutmeg's European markup reportedly reached roughly 32,000% from source to sale, and a single shipload could finance a fleet. It stands as one of history's most arresting reminders that commodity values are never permanent.
What feels like obvious wealth in one century can look like a footnote in the next.
🇳🇱 NL
Source: Live Science; O'Shaughnessy Asset Management
🌍 Around the World
Cyprus Keeps Dividend Withholding Simple — Zero for Non-Residents
Cyprus generally imposes no withholding tax on dividends paid to non-resident shareholders, placing it alongside Malta and the UK among Europe's more straightforward jurisdictions for international income investors. For the modest number of Cypriot-listed stocks that cross-border investors encounter, the mechanics are refreshingly uncomplicated. That said, an investor's home-country tax obligations still apply — the simplicity stops at the Cypriot border.
No withholding at source doesn't mean no tax ever — your home country still has a say.
🇨🇾 CY
Source: PwC Tax Summaries
🔥 Dividend Streak
H.B. Fuller's Ethics Legacy Is Complicated — and Still Taught
H.B. Fuller began in 1887 as a one-person wallpaper-paste operation in St. Paul and grew into a Dividend King with 56 consecutive years of increases stretching back to 1970 — and a funded business-ethics chair at the University of Minnesota. In the 1990s, the company faced searing scrutiny after its solvent-based Resistol adhesive became widely misused as an inhalant by impoverished children in Central America. Fuller ultimately reformulated the product and ended its retail sale in the region; the episode remains a standard business-school case on corporate responsibility for downstream harm.
A 56-year dividend streak and an ethics award don't immunize a company from its own product's consequences.
FUL — Fulcrum Lithium Ltd
Source: Wikipedia — H.B. Fuller Company; FundingUniverse Company Histories
🔥 Dividend Streak
H.B. Fuller's Ethics Legacy Is Complicated — and Still Taught
H.B. Fuller began in 1887 as a one-person wallpaper-paste operation in St. Paul and grew into a Dividend King with 56 consecutive years of increases stretching back to 1970 — and a funded business-ethics chair at the University of Minnesota. In the 1990s, the company faced searing scrutiny after its solvent-based Resistol adhesive became widely misused as an inhalant by impoverished children in Central America. Fuller ultimately reformulated the product and ended its retail sale in the region; the episode remains a standard business-school case on corporate responsibility for downstream harm.
A 56-year dividend streak and an ethics award don't immunize a company from its own product's consequences.
FUL — H B Fuller Company
Source: Wikipedia — H.B. Fuller Company; FundingUniverse Company Histories
💡 Did You Know
Wartime Price Controls Spoiled America's Second Whiskey Dividend
When the U.S. entered World War II, the government banned whiskey production to redirect alcohol toward ammunition and synthetic rubber — and distillers once again sat on aging stockpiles, echoing the Prohibition era. When the ban lifted in 1943, Park & Tilford offered shareholders the right to purchase six cases at a reduced price. But wartime price controls intervened, ruling a below-market whiskey offer out of bounds — a uniquely American dividend, twice conceived and twice undone by the government that made it possible.
Prohibition, a medicinal-whiskey loophole, and wartime bans combined to make the whiskey dividend a one-of-a-kind chapter in income history.
🇺🇸 US
Source: Global Financial Data Blog; Finaeon Encyclopedia