This could produce some demand for dividend-paying stocks, particularly given then the rates will be put in place permanently.
"Financial advisers want to offer this kind of fund because there's tremendous demand for dividends from their clients," said Frank Coates, national sales director for Strong.
In recent months, Apple's CEO has announced the results of an internal audit into more than 100 of Apple's suppliers; met Wall Street demands for a dividend and stock buyback program; and addressed labor abuse protests directly.
Investor demand for a higher dividend yield implied a fear of very subdued dividend growth, or even cuts in payouts.If the outlook is for years of low economic growth, then this gloomy dividend assessment will probably be correct.
By Tuesday, Mr. Icahn had pivoted to the demand for a special dividend.
The cuts that followed, Mr. Cohen went on to say, reflected a strong bipartisan demand for a "peace dividend" now that the United States no longer faced the Soviet Union.
The special committee of Dell's board overseeing the sale of the computer maker asked Carl C. Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management on Monday to furnish more information about their recent demand for a special dividend.
The government has since let it raise prices, but Petrobras still suffers political pressure, such as demands for big dividends, which help bolster Brazil's threadbare public finances.
Real estate funds rose 11.7percentt, benefiting from the Federal Reserve's cautious stance on interest rates and from demand for funds that pay stable dividends.
Investment suffers as shareholders hungry for dividends demand ever increasing payouts, while risk taking rises, as demonstrated to disastrous global effect by the financial crisis.
Because of weak investor appetite for big blue-chip stocks and near-bottomless demand for the safety of Treasury securities, the dividend yield on the S.& P. 500 — total dividends divided by stock prices — is now higher than the 10-year Treasury bond yield, Mr. Miller explained.
