Gavekal Capital: The Emerging Market Dividend

Monday, November 17, 2014

The Emerging Market Dividend

As we saw last week, the single most important factor in the performance of constituents in the MSCI Emerging Market Index over the last year has been dividend yield:

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The median dividend yield for EM companies is about 2%, with EM EMEA on the high end (2.75%) and EM Asia on the lower end (1.78%):

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Among emerging market sectors, Materials companies have, on average, the highest payout ratio while more Consumer Staples companies pay a dividend (over 96%) than any other sector:

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About 90% of constituents in each region pay a dividend.  Looking at longer-term trends, however, we note that EM Asia and EM EMEA are at relatively high levels while fewer EM Latin America companies are paying dividends compared to the proportion paying (94%) just five years ago:

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The Consumer Staples sector is also the place to look for companies that are raising dividends:

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Overall, the proportion of companies increasing their dividend payments consecutively has grown-- from just 2.4% over the last decade to more than 25% in the last three years.

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