In 2008 most of the financial banks took a beating for their involvement with mortgage backed securities – the prices went to zero and had to be written off, as well as writing large cheques to the regulators which has helped the treasury of New York state and the federal government. Prior to 2008, the banks were counted on for delivering their dividends to shareholders. The world has changed and last the dividend kings were the IT or tech sector. In the article The US dividend kings: banks and techs? written by David Milstead using research from Howard Silverblatt the senior index analyst for the S&P Dow Jones Indices. Mr. Silverblatt added up the declared dividends and annualizes it – he noted the IT sector paid $ 55.5 billion in annual dividends or 14% of the S&P 500. In 2007 – financials accounted for 30% of the dividends. The following are the leaders in paying dividends

Top 10 Tech Dividend Yields in the S& P 500

1. Seagate Technology      3.97%

2. KLA-Tencor                    3.32

3. Western Union                3.22

4. CA                                   3.20

5. Xillinx                                3.12

6. Paychex                            3.10

7. Intel                                   2.97

8 Cisco Systems                  2.97

9. Microsoft                           2.95

10. Microchip Tech                2.91

The Top 10 Tech Dividend Payers in the S & P 500   in Billions $

1. Apple                               $ 11.158

2. Microsoft                              9.485

3. Intel                                      4.409

4. IBM                                      4.265

5. Cisco Systems                     3.895

6. Qualcomm                            2.693

7. Oracle                                   2.149

8. Texas Instruments                1.323

9. Hewlett-Packard                   1.210

10. Accenture                           1.188

Linking to dividend paying stocks, hopefully you know some or many of the names, if you do not, you need to broaden your searches. Quality companies come across the spectrum and the computer age is maturing. There is still many applications to be developed and capitalized, but as more mature companies one expects dividend payments rather than growth. The analysis and how much you should pay to get a return on your money becomes different. In does not mean a mature company can not have growth, but it is a wonderful bonus when it happens.

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