The Outlook for S&P 500 Dividends in March 2026

The outlook for the S&P 500′s dividends dimmed since previous snapshot of their future. For all five quarters in our forecast window, all showed decreases though of varying amounts.

Here is our summary of how the outlook for the S&P 500′s quarterly dividends per share has changed in the past month for the current quarter of 2026-Q1, the remaining three quarters of 2026, and the first quarter of 2027:

• 2026-Q1: Decrease of $0.25, falling to $21.46 per share
• 2026-Q2: Decrease of $0.08, dipping to $19.62 per share
• 2026-Q3: Decrease of $0.05, ticking down to $20.28 per share
• 2026-Q4: Decrease of $0.30, dropping to $20.12 per share
• 2027-Q1: Decrease of $0.40, declining to $21.20 per share

The following chart shows how expectations for the S&P 500′s quarterly dividends per share changed in the month from 13 February 2026 to 13 March 2026.

In the next edition of this series, we’ll show 2026-Q1 as finalized and will add 2027-Q2 to the outlook. If the outlook for dividends continues to dim, we’ll have to drag out our old thesaurus to find new expressions to describe the negative changes since we blew through all the ones we keep on ready standby for this edition.

More About Dividend Futures Data

For this series, we take a snapshot of the CME Group’s S&P 500 quarterly dividend futures data shortly after the second or third week of each month.

Dividend futures indicate the amount of dividends per share to be paid out over the period covered by each quarter’s dividend futures contracts, which start on the day after the preceding quarter’s dividend futures contracts expire and end on the third Friday of the month ending the indicated quarter. For example, as determined by dividend futures contracts, the now “current” quarter of 2026-Q1 began on Saturday, 20 December 2025 and will end later this week, on Friday, 20 March 2026. The upcoming quarter of 2026-Q2 will become the current quarter on Saturday, 21 March 2026 and end on Friday, 19 June 2026.

Because dividend futures are tied to options contracts that run on this schedule, that makes these figures different from the quarterly dividends per share figures that are reported by Standard and Poor. S&P reports the amount of dividends per share paid out during regular calendar quarters after the end of each quarter. This term mismatch accounts for the differences in dividends reported by both sources, with the biggest differences between the two typically seen in the first and fourth quarters of each year.

How changes in the outlook for dividends at specific points of time in the future contribute to changes in current day stock prices is described by this math.

Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: “A crystal ball with the word ‘SP 500′ written inside it”. And ‘Dividends’ written above it, which we added.