What Does the Bank of America Smackdown Mean for Investors?

In fact, after years of being an afterthought to the go-go years of the '60s and the Internet boom of the '90s, dividends are once again becoming quite the fad. Is a dividend that important? This year, profit margins for US companies will reach their highest levels since 1993; they're increasing to 8.9% in 2011, according to Bloomberg. And companies have stockpiles of cash that they've been sitting on since the financial crisis in 2008, and it's getting to be about that time that they start dishing out some payments.... Read more