raising and cutting dividends

Remarkably, Schwab research has found that stocks that have raised their dividends in each of the past five years have underperformed all other dividend-paying stocks by almost 3% annually since 1990! What's more, stocks that cut dividends in the prior year have outperformed all other dividend-yielding stocks by about 2.5% per year over the same time—possibly because investors view dividend cuts as a signal that management is serious about addressing financial difficulties facing the firm.