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How big each kind of cash distribution is, as a share of the stock price

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 2026-08-22, from When Special Dividends Adjust Options.

as of ranking 5×4read in context →
How big each kind of cash distribution is, as a share of the stock price — 5 rows by 4 columns, computed from US exchange, SIP and OPRA data.
payout_typepayoutsmedian_yield_pctp90_yield_pct
Monthly1022020.4170.89
Quarterly981750.6831.97
Semiannual56211.1563
Annual32511.4036.09
One time59570.7634.74
Rows × columns
5 × 4
Computed
Completeness
No missing values
Source
US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data
Licence
Strasmore terms · free, no signup
Formats
JSON · CSV · the SQL below

What each column holds

Column definitions for How big each kind of cash distribution is, as a share of the stock price, derived from the stored result.
ColumnTypeRangeNotes
payout_type text 5 distinct values (Annual, Monthly, One time…)
payouts number 3,251 to 102,202
median_yield_pct number 0.417 to 1.403 percent
p90_yield_pct number 0.89 to 6.09 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.

the exact SQL behind every number
SELECT
    multiIf(frequency = 0, 'One time',
            frequency = 1, 'Annual',
            frequency = 2, 'Semiannual',
            frequency = 4, 'Quarterly',
                           'Monthly')                     AS payout_type,
    count()                                               AS payouts,
    round(quantileDeterministic(0.5)(yield_pct, det), 3)  AS median_yield_pct,
    round(quantileDeterministic(0.9)(yield_pct, det), 2)  AS p90_yield_pct
FROM
(
    SELECT
        dv.frequency                                            AS frequency,
        100 * toFloat64(dv.cash_amt) / toFloat64(px.close)       AS yield_pct,
        cityHash64(dv.ticker, toString(dv.ex_dividend_date))     AS det
    FROM
    (
        SELECT
            ticker,
            date,
            max(close) AS close
        FROM global_markets.stocks_daily_aggs
        WHERE date >= '2019-01-01'
          AND (ticker, date) IN
          (
              SELECT ticker, ex_dividend_date
              FROM global_markets.stocks_dividends
              WHERE currency = 'USD'
                AND cash_amount > 0
          )
        GROUP BY ticker, date
        HAVING close >= 1
    ) AS px
    INNER JOIN
    (
        SELECT
            ticker,
            ex_dividend_date,
            frequency,
            max(cash_amount) AS cash_amt
        FROM global_markets.stocks_dividends
        WHERE currency = 'USD'
          AND cash_amount > 0
          AND frequency IN (0, 1, 2, 4, 12)
          AND ex_dividend_date >= '2019-01-01'
          AND ex_dividend_date <  today() - 5
        GROUP BY ticker, ex_dividend_date, frequency
    ) AS dv ON dv.ticker = px.ticker AND dv.ex_dividend_date = px.date
)
GROUP BY payout_type
HAVING payouts >= 200
ORDER BY (payout_type = 'One time') ASC, median_yield_pct ASC

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