[quote=no_such_reality]No, you misunderstood what I said SK.
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What these dividends tell me is that these companies that are declaring special dividends (Costco for sure, Oracle maybe) have been sitting on way too much cash, without anything good to do with it.
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In a nutshell, that’s what I said. A simple move a January payment to December, that’s nothing.
A special dividend. A pay the first 3 quarters of 2013 in December. That’s ‘we don’t have anything worth while to do with the money’.
Which then begs the question, why have they been sitting on it…[/quote]
I get what you are saying but you are saying two different things:
1. the company RoA estimate is such that they do not think they can beat the increase in tax rates in dividends, hence figure it is better to return shareholder money.
2. They had a low dividend tax for a decade where they never paid out that good, but now that it is about to expire, they suddenly fell in love with returning shareholders some money.
