Subject: Re: Barrons and dividends
Any analysis that starts with 1973 or 1960 is going to be skewed by the fact that stock buybacks weren't much of a thing before 1982.

That doesn't matter to people who believe that dividends are free money.

You look at total returns and pick out one piece of it and say "This piece was 85% of the reason for the total return". No, it's just a component that can be easily identified.

What's the point of getting a dividend if you are just going to reinvest it in the company? Better for the company to have kept it internally in the first place. Plus you pay tax on the dividend so you lost 15% and only reinvest 85% of it.