13 November 2017: GE cuts its dividend in half
General Electric, once America's most valuable company, cut its quarterly dividend in half and laid out a plan to shrink, sending the shares down about 7 percent. The dividend was a cherished income source for millions of retirees and had been cut only once since the 1930s, in the 2009 crisis. The company's troubles in power equipment and insurance kept piling up, and the stock kept falling for another year.
The lesson: A dividend is only as safe as the cash flow that pays it.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in General Electric at the start of 2018 → $2,000 today, vs $2,519 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2018, the first year in our price data after the event. That is 2.0 times the money, but $519 less than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What General Electric teaches: Earnings that look too smooth often hide leverage or accounting; the market eventually pays for transparency and punishes complexity.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | $200 | $1,400 | $3,301 |
| 2018 | $140 | $2,000 | $2,519 |
| 2020 | $90.00 | $3,111 | $2,092 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought General Electric? Every starting year and the full story →
More General Electric history
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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