Dividends paying companies and dividend funds go up and down similar to the rest of the world. There are no guarantees except for when companies do not pay dividends – there are two reasons One is incomptent executive management who missed the boat and deserved to be replaced. Second is sometimes management has done everything right or seemingly right until events in the world overturn everything. An example is from a book called The Masters of Private Equity and Venture Capital by Robert Finkel and David Greising. The premise of the book is to interview people who run large funds, have done it for years and has done exceedingly well (ie made billions) and find out what or how they do what they do. In order to achieve remarkable results, there are many examples of doing very well; there are examples of not doing well. One example is one of the funds looked at a company which made private jets – the fund had done its homework, the company had a backorder of $10 billion. After 9/11 the order books disappeared. Was it anyones fault the fund lost its investment? no, but it happened. The example is an illustration that events do happen.
Companies that pay dividends typically have large order books and a consistent profitable marketshare, the analysis is to see how management is doing for the world changes, things happen but generally dividend paying companies have time and resources to adjust and keep carrying on to pay dividends.

There are always more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.