Dividends paid as a share of operating cash flow, by sector
Answered against 22 years of US equities and 12 years of US options data and published with the query that produced it. This result is stored as of 2026-10-08, from Average Dividend Yield by Sector: 2026 Data.
| sector | names_with_filings | dividends_pct_of_cash_flow |
|---|---|---|
| Real Estate | 4 | 72.2 |
| Staples | 5 | 44.5 |
| Health Care | 5 | 44.4 |
| Energy | 4 | 31.7 |
| Utilities | 5 | 30.1 |
| Industrials | 5 | 26.4 |
| Materials | 4 | 19.3 |
| Tech | 5 | 16.5 |
| Discretionary | 5 | 13.4 |
| Communication | 5 | 11.7 |
| Financials | 5 | 10.2 |
- Rows × columns
- 11 × 3
- Computed
- Completeness
- No missing values
- Source
- US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data
- Licence
- Strasmore terms · free, no signup
What each column holds
| Column | Type | Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
sector |
text | 11 distinct values (Communication, Discretionary, Energy…) | |
names_with_filings |
number | 4 to 5 | |
dividends_pct_of_cash_flow |
number | 10.2 to 72.2 | percent |
Computed from Strasmore's warehouse of US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data. Equity prices are delayed; options greeks and implied volatility are end-of-day. This result is stored, not recomputed on load — it is exactly the numbers that were returned on , and the query below is what returned them.
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WITH
basket AS
(
SELECT
pair.1 AS ticker,
pair.2 AS sector
FROM
(
SELECT arrayJoin([
('XOM', 'Energy'), ('CVX', 'Energy'), ('COP', 'Energy'), ('SLB', 'Energy'),
('JPM', 'Financials'), ('BAC', 'Financials'), ('GS', 'Financials'), ('BLK', 'Financials'), ('AXP', 'Financials'),
('JNJ', 'Health Care'), ('ABBV', 'Health Care'), ('MRK', 'Health Care'), ('AMGN', 'Health Care'), ('GILD', 'Health Care'),
('KO', 'Staples'), ('PG', 'Staples'), ('PEP', 'Staples'), ('COST', 'Staples'), ('CL', 'Staples'),
('DUK', 'Utilities'), ('SO', 'Utilities'), ('AEP', 'Utilities'), ('NEE', 'Utilities'), ('XEL', 'Utilities'),
('AAPL', 'Tech'), ('MSFT', 'Tech'), ('AVGO', 'Tech'), ('CSCO', 'Tech'), ('ADBE', 'Tech'),
('CAT', 'Industrials'), ('HON', 'Industrials'), ('UNP', 'Industrials'), ('GE', 'Industrials'), ('LMT', 'Industrials'),
('HD', 'Discretionary'), ('MCD', 'Discretionary'), ('AMZN', 'Discretionary'), ('TSLA', 'Discretionary'), ('SBUX', 'Discretionary'),
('LIN', 'Materials'), ('SHW', 'Materials'), ('NEM', 'Materials'), ('DOW', 'Materials'),
('VZ', 'Communication'), ('T', 'Communication'), ('CMCSA', 'Communication'), ('GOOGL', 'Communication'), ('NFLX', 'Communication'),
('AMT', 'Real Estate'), ('PLD', 'Real Estate'), ('PSA', 'Real Estate'), ('SPG', 'Real Estate')
]) AS pair
)
),
quarters AS
(
SELECT
ticker,
period_end,
max(abs(toFloat64(dividends))) AS dividends_paid,
max(toFloat64(net_cash_from_operating_activities)) AS operating_cash_flow
FROM
(
SELECT
arrayJoin(tickers) AS ticker,
period_end,
dividends,
net_cash_from_operating_activities
FROM global_markets.stocks_cash_flow_statements
WHERE timeframe = 'quarterly'
AND period_end >= today() - 500
AND period_end <= today()
)
GROUP BY ticker, period_end
),
joined AS
(
SELECT
b.sector AS sector,
q.ticker AS ticker,
q.dividends_paid AS dividends_paid,
q.operating_cash_flow AS operating_cash_flow
FROM quarters AS q
INNER JOIN basket AS b ON b.ticker = q.ticker
WHERE q.operating_cash_flow > 0
)
SELECT
sector,
countDistinct(ticker) AS names_with_filings,
round(100 * sum(dividends_paid) / sum(operating_cash_flow), 1) AS dividends_pct_of_cash_flow
FROM joined
GROUP BY sector
HAVING sum(operating_cash_flow) > 0
ORDER BY dividends_pct_of_cash_flow DESC
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