📅 On This Day
S&P 500 Completes COVID Recovery in 126 Trading Days
On August 18, 2020, the S&P 500 closed at 3,389.78 — surpassing its February 19 pre-COVID peak and completing a remarkable round-trip from a 34% plunge in just 23 trading days. Fiscal stimulus, near-zero rates, and a surging tech sector powered the rebound. For dividend investors, though, the recovery carried a sting: stock prices were whole again, but hundreds of companies had cut or suspended payouts during the crash, and many hadn't yet brought them back.
Price recovery came fast; dividend recovery was a different, slower story for income investors.
🇺🇸 US
Source: NPR; The Wall Street Journal
🌍 Around the World
Switzerland's 35% Dividend Tax Demands Patience and Paperwork
Switzerland is home to dividend stalwarts like Nestlé, Roche, and Novartis — but its standard withholding rate of 35% is among the steepest of any major ADR nation. The U.S.-Switzerland treaty reduces that to 15% for qualifying American investors, yet the reduction is not automatic: brokers must file with Swiss tax authorities, and reclaiming the excess 20% above the treaty rate can take 12 to 24 months through the Swiss Federal Tax Administration.
Swiss ADRs in IRAs carry a particular sting — no foreign tax credit means the full drag sticks.
🇨🇭 CH
Source: PwC Tax Summaries; Tax Foundation Europe
🔥 Dividend Streak
J&J's Dividend Kept Rising Through Its Darkest Crisis
In September 1982, seven people died after cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules reached Chicago-area shelves. Johnson & Johnson recalled 31 million bottles at a cost of roughly $100 million — a crisis response now studied as a textbook example of corporate accountability. Through it all, the dividend kept rising; J&J has now posted 63 consecutive years of increases, with the streak stretching back to 1963.
The Tylenol recall reshaped consumer safety standards — and never once interrupted J&J's dividend growth.
JNJ — Johnson & Johnson
Source: PBS NewsHour
🔥 Dividend Streak
J&J's Dividend Kept Rising Through Its Darkest Crisis
In September 1982, seven people died after cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules reached Chicago-area shelves. Johnson & Johnson recalled 31 million bottles at a cost of roughly $100 million — a crisis response now studied as a textbook example of corporate accountability. Through it all, the dividend kept rising; J&J has now posted 63 consecutive years of increases, with the streak stretching back to 1963.
The Tylenol recall reshaped consumer safety standards — and never once interrupted J&J's dividend growth.
JNJ — Johnson & Johnson
Source: PBS NewsHour
💡 Did You Know
Bankrupt Railroads Paid Creditors in Preferred Stock, Not Cash
When financial panics swept through mid-1800s America and overleveraged railroad lines collapsed, courts and bankers found a creative solution: hand defaulted bondholders and unpaid contractors preferred stock instead of cash that simply didn't exist. Those certificates spelled out fixed dividend rates right on their face, giving creditors a senior equity claim and a future income stream. Preferred stock didn't merely help build the railroads — it helped clean up the wreckage afterward.
Old insolvency records overflow with 'old preferred' and 'new preferred' — dividends born from default.
🇺🇸 US
Source: Chang Ge; Evans (1929)