📅 On This Day
Powell Rewrites the Fed Playbook at Jackson Hole
On August 27, 2020, Fed Chair Jerome Powell unveiled 'average inflation targeting' at the Jackson Hole symposium — a historic pivot signaling that rates would stay lower for longer, even as the economy recovered. For dividend investors, the message was electric: yield-bearing stocks would remain compelling against bonds in the new regime. The framework would face its sternest test when inflation surged to 9% in 2022.
A policy shift born in Wyoming quietly made dividend stocks more attractive than they'd been in years.
🇺🇸 US
Source: The Washington Post; Federal Reserve
🌍 Around the World
Hong Kong Offers Investors a Rare Zero-Tax Dividend Haven
Hong Kong levies no dividend withholding tax, no capital gains tax, and no tax on dividend income for individuals — meaning distributions from locally domiciled companies flow from company to shareholder completely untouched. There is a meaningful caveat, however: many HKEX-listed stocks are mainland Chinese companies trading as H-shares, and China itself imposes a 10% withholding tax on those dividends before they ever reach Hong Kong. The effective tax rate, it turns out, follows the company's domicile rather than its listing venue.
On HKEX, the fine print on H-shares matters as much as the headline zero-tax promise.
🇭🇰 HK
Source: Hong Kong Inland Revenue Department; HKEX investor education
🔥 Dividend Streak
Tootsie Roll's Family Fortress Has Raised Dividends for 59 Years
Since 1948, the Gordon family has steered Tootsie Roll Industries with quiet, almost stubborn conviction — controlling 83% of the Class B shares, each carrying ten times the voting power of ordinary stock. The result is something rare: a publicly listed company that functions almost like a private one, having raised its dividend for 59 consecutive years starting from 1967. Family control has shielded that streak from activist disruption, though it equally limits outside accountability.
TR is proof that a candy company run like a family heirloom can still be a Dividend King.
TR — Tootsie Roll Industries Inc
Source: Sure Dividend — Dividend Kings: TR
💡 Did You Know
Finnish Scissors Maker Fiskars Traces Its Roots to 1649
Fiskars — the company behind those iconic orange-handled scissors — was founded in 1649, placing its corporate origins nearly 50 years before the founding of the Bank of England. Still connected to a public equity market today, it stands as a vivid reminder that European dividend history can stretch far beyond anything a modern stock index is built to capture. Ancient roots, it seems, don't preclude a contemporary payout.
When Fiskars was founded in 1649, the concept of a stock exchange was barely a generation old.
🇫🇮 FI
Source: Fiskars Group corporate history