Dividend Yield Calculator

Dividend yield tells you how much cash a stock pays you each year for every dollar you invest in it. A $50 stock paying $2 a year has a 4% yield: for every $100 you put in, you get about $4 back annually in cash.

This matters more than the raw dividend amount because the dollar figure on its own tells you nothing about price. A company paying $5 per share sounds far more generous than one paying $1 — but if the first trades at $500 and the second at $20, the $1 payer actually returns five times as much per dollar invested. Yield puts every stock on the same scale so you can compare them fairly, and against alternatives like savings accounts or bonds.

One caution: a very high yield is not automatically good news. Because price sits on the bottom of the equation, a falling share price pushes yield up. Sometimes that's a bargain; sometimes it's the market predicting the dividend is about to be cut. Always check whether the company's earnings comfortably cover what it pays out.