OldFoolFred

I pretty much read the Persimmon news as an announcement that those dividends would be paid on those dates up until 2021. The only doubt was whether they would just may those minimum levels of dividends on those dates or whether they would also pay some form of performance related extra.
So any reason why the dividends should not appear on all the usual data sources going out to 2021 ? I've checked a few sites so far and they aren't listed.
I've also taken a glance at one source of data for projected yields and they clearly haven't been updated to reflect the new announcement.
So should I also be just ignoring the announcements as the various data websites are and treat it just as more meaningless words in a company press release that they can backtrack on with no consequences. Would that count as Strategic Ignorance ?

As far as I understand it, the usual web data sources take their forecasts by averaging out forecasts provided by brokers who cover the company in question. Forecast dividends, EPS etc will therefore take some time to catch up and reflect the new dividend policies such as that provided by Persimmon. In fact they won't directly reflect the policy, they'll reflect the broker's interpretation of the policy overlaid by the extent to which the broker believes the policy will be followed in reality. Plus, brokers tend to only provide forecasts over one or two years so don't expect the see web sites quoting forecasts out to 2021.

Dividends paid alternate years will obviously create lumpiness in income. But either it will just be one or two companies that do this in which case I'm sure the lumpiness won't be a problem on a well diversified portfolio unless you are already eating substantially into any safety margin for income. But if it become more of a widespread phenomenon then provided some companies pay some years and others in the gaps then it should all pretty much even out. It will only become an issue if all companies pay in even years and none do in odd years.

That's a good point. If lumpy dividend payers constitute 2 or 3 companies in a 15 share HYP where the investor is drawing and income then this could create issues. Having a suitable safety margin or cash reserve will smooth this out. If the HYPer is still building their portfolio or we're talking about 2 or 3 companies in a 30+ share HYP then probably not an issue.

Degsy