The dividend yield of the S&P 500 is above that of the ten year Treasury for the first time since the financial crisis. Before that we have to go all the way back to the 1950's to find a time when this was the case.
The kicker... stock dividends have only made up about 45% of total S&P composite stock returns over the past 100 years, while Treasury bond coupon payments have made up north of 96% of Treasury bonds returns over that same period (see below). What this means for an investor is unless you think dividends will be cut and/or capital appreciation will be negative (i.e. corporate America will shrink in terms of nominal value), stocks are poised to outperform.
My take... stocks appear to be very cheap relative to bonds for investors with a long-term investment horizon, while near term investors need to be careful as we seem to be in a world that is likely to have binary outcomes (i.e. either a boom or an absolute collapse).
The remaining 55% of S&P stock returns have been in the form of capital appreciation, which has become increasingly important since the 1950's (see above), as corporations reinvested earnings back into their businesses / bought back shares (vs paying out dividends), while investors evaluated the relative merits of equities relative to bonds (see the much tighter relationship to bonds, which ratcheted up P/E multiples).
Source: Irrational Exuberance
