Late August afternoons in the Northeast and Midwest are often punctuated by thunderstorms.
The sweltering heat and humidity build a gray haze that darkens throughout the day, eventually turning ominous and ending in a deluge.
As the stock market reaches new highs, just such a build up may be happening in dividend stocks.
Run Up in Dividend Stocks
Like the sun’s heat and the Gulf of Mexico’s tropical moisture that power stormy August afternoons, the run up of dividend stocks has been driven by a potent fuel: rock-bottom interest rates. As central banks throughout world opened the monetary floodgates in hopes of spurring economic activity, they pushed interest rates down to levels that once were impossible to conceive. In some parts of Europe, rates are even lower than low – they’re negative, which defies common sense and is simply bizarre.
