Most investors, before investing long term in a company, are interested to know what is the dividend that the company offers for its shareholders. The easiest way to know the dividend of a stock (in the US market) is to visit Yahoo’s finance page for that stock.

For example, let’s say that you want to find CSCO’s dividend, you go to http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=csco . If you want to find the divided for MAS (Masco Corporation), you go to http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=mas, so all you need to do is just replace the bold part with the stock ticker of the stock that you want to know the dividend of.

Now let’s check CSCO’s page on Yahoo finance (by visiting the link above):

We can see from the above that CSCO is paying a dividend of $0.24/share, which means that if you own 1,000 shares with CSCO – currently worth $18,180 – you will make $240 every year, about 1.3% of your initial investment. So, if you’re just there for dividends, then you’re there for the wrong reasons.

As for MAS, it is currently priced at $9.45 and is paying a dividend of $0.30/share. Which means that if you own a 1,000 shares with MAS worth $9,450, you will make $300, which is about 3% of your initial investment. Not that great but not too bad either, if you take into consideration the bad economy. However, keep in mind that MAS lost 25.36% of its value this year, which means that you would have lost 22.36% (if you bought MAS at the beginning of the year) even after taking the dividends into consideration.

Always remember, a high dividend is not a sign of a good stock.

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