The 30-year Treasury yield topped 5.33% on Tuesday, its highest level in 19 years, creating a roughly 2.2 percentage point advantage over the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF's 3.1% yield. The last time the long bond yielded this much was June 2007, when it peaked at 5.35%, and the subsequent financial crisis saw the yield collapse to 2.69% by the end of 2008, rewarding bondholders with price gains. On the equity side, Standard & Poor's counted 110 negative dividend actions in 2007, 606 in 2008, and 804 in 2009, with indicated dividend payments falling by a net $43.8 billion in the first quarter of 2009 alone. General Electric cut its quarterly dividend from $0.31 to $0.10 per share in February 2009, preserving about $9 billion a year, and dividend increases across U.S. stocks did not return to their prior pace until 2012. The Schwab fund, which launched in late 2011 and tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 index, screens for companies with at least 10 consecutive years of dividend payments and financial-strength measures, and its shares have returned about 27% this year.
GE Aerospace
NVIDIA Corporation30-year Treasury yield rose above 5.33%, indicating higher yields and lower bond prices.
