📅 On This Day
9/11 Attacks Force NYSE Into Its Longest Unplanned Closure Since 1933
On September 11, 2001, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon shuttered the NYSE and Nasdaq for six full trading days — the longest unplanned market closure since the bank holiday of 1933. When trading resumed on September 17, the Dow shed 684 points in a single session. The catastrophe permanently reshaped financial risk management, and defense contractors — many of them steady dividend payers — began a prolonged era of growth.
Airline and insurance stocks were devastated; the dividend landscape quietly shifted toward defense in the years that followed.
🇺🇸 US
Source: NYSE; The Wall Street Journal
🌍 Around the World
Germany's Dividend Tax Bites Hard Before Treaty Relief Arrives
German dividends carry a standard withholding rate of 26.375% — a 25% capital yields tax plus a 5.5% solidarity surcharge on that amount — meaning a €100 dividend may initially arrive as roughly €73.63 before any reclaim. For qualifying U.S. investors, the U.S.-Germany tax treaty reduces that burden to 15%, and many brokers apply the treaty rate automatically for major German securities. Those who receive the full withholding must file a reclaim with Germany's Federal Central Tax Office, a process that typically takes six to twelve months.
Even at the 15% treaty rate, IRA holders lose that withholding permanently — trimming a 3% yield down to about 2.55%.
🇩🇪 DE
Source: PwC Tax Summaries; Tax Foundation Europe
🔥 Dividend Streak
Bank of Montreal Has Paid Dividends Since 1829 — With a Telling Asterisk
Bank of Montreal has paid a dividend every year since 1829, a payment record that stands among the most enduring of any Canadian public company — yet its consecutive-increase streak runs only about 24 years, because Canadian banks froze rather than cut dividends during the 2008 crisis and again under a regulator order during COVID. That distinction matters: unbroken payment and unbroken growth are two very different achievements. Canada counts only two true Dividend Kings — Canadian Utilities and Fortis, each just past 50 years of consecutive increases.
Canada's 'Aristocrat' label requires just five years of increases — a far gentler bar than the U.S. standard of 25.
BMO — Bank of Montreal
🇨🇦 CA
Source: Dividend Power; The Motley Fool Canada
🔥 Dividend Streak
Bank of Montreal Has Paid Dividends Since 1829 — With a Telling Asterisk
Bank of Montreal has paid a dividend every year since 1829, a payment record that stands among the most enduring of any Canadian public company — yet its consecutive-increase streak runs only about 24 years, because Canadian banks froze rather than cut dividends during the 2008 crisis and again under a regulator order during COVID. That distinction matters: unbroken payment and unbroken growth are two very different achievements. Canada counts only two true Dividend Kings — Canadian Utilities and Fortis, each just past 50 years of consecutive increases.
Canada's 'Aristocrat' label requires just five years of increases — a far gentler bar than the U.S. standard of 25.
BMO — Bank of Montreal
🇨🇦 CA
Source: Dividend Power; The Motley Fool Canada
💡 Did You Know
Where a Stock Trades Has Nothing to Do With Its Withholding Tax
Withholding tax follows a company's tax residence, not the exchange where its shares happen to trade. A stock listed in London may source its dividends from an entirely different jurisdiction; an ADR trading in New York still carries the withholding rules of the underlying company's home country. For international dividend investors, the essential question is never "Where does this trade?" but rather "Where is the dividend legally sourced, and what treaty documentation applies?"
Dual-listed companies can add another layer of complexity, with special mechanics that vary by structure and domicile.
Source: PwC Tax Summaries; OECD Model Tax Convention