5

STOCK DIVIDENDS

mately comparable dates at the beginning and ending of each of
the seven-year periods under discussion.

FOURTEEN YEARS DIVIDENDS OF CORPORATIONS ISSUING STOCK
DIVIDENDS, 1920-1926

Of the corporations whose stock dividends and capitalization are
presented in Appendix 4, 4,967 reported dividends—eash, stock, and
other—to the commission from 1913 to 1926, inclusive.
The majority of corporations in this group closed their books as
of December 31. In all these cases, therefore, the first seven-year
period for dividends issued or paid is from January 1, 1913, to December
 31, 1919, and the second from January 1, 1920, to December 31,
1926. Where the books were closed on some other date, however,
some corporations may have reported the dividends as of the fiscal
year rather than the calendar year. As a full seven years is covered
for each period, however, the discrepancy in time involved is not
Iportms A comparison of the dividends is shown in the following
table:

TasLE 2.—Cash, stock, and other dwidends paid in the seven-year periods, 1913-1919
and 1920-1926, by 4,967 corporations paying stock dwidends in the latter period
and reporting on dwidends for the 14 years, 1913-1926 1

First 7 years

Second 7 years

iy

Increase (+) or decrease
(=) in second period

Kind of dividend

Amount

Per cent
of total

A mount

Per cent
of total

Amount | Per cent

+80. 35
+780. 27
—11. 62
4178.83
1 For qualification of figures with respect to comparison of the two periods, see footnote to Table 1 and
text accompanving that table.

ash ea
Stock. aes
Ofher tose Jt

83.49
14.35
2.16

$5, 602, 724, 808
4,777, 373, 300
72,216, 952

In the first seven-year period stock dividends composed 15 per
cent of the total dividends issued by the group of 4,967, whereas, in
the second period they amounted to over 45 per cent. In the first
period cash dividends aggregated over 83 per cent of the total. In
the second they had fallen to 54 per cent. It should be noted, however,
 that despite this relative decline in cash dividends in the second
period, an absolute increase occurred in the amount of such dividends
aggregating over 80 per cent. This absolute increase, however, is
small as compared with that of nearly 800 per cent shown by the
stock dividends.

CAPITALIZATION AND DIVIDENDS FOR 14 YEARS FOR CORPORA-TIONS
 REPORTING STOCK DIVIDENDS, 1920-1926

While the foregoing group of 4,967 corporations paying stock dividends
 during 1920-1926, reported on dividends for the entire 14-year
 period from 1913 to 1926, inclusive, the stock capitalization of