Dividend-paying companies are rapidly closing the earnings growth gap with technology stocks and contributing more earnings momentum to the S&P 500. After a significant increase over the past year on this key earnings metric, the trend suggests that dividend stocks may present an even stronger case to investors seeking income and safety in a volatile market.
The earnings momentum broadening out beyond the tech sector comes at a time when investors are seeking ways to limit risk amid the second military conflict in the Middle East in under a year and a shock to the oil markets that is unprecedented.
In Q1 2025, the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index posted earnings growth of negative 5.5%. By Q4 of last year, that earnings growth rate had rebounded to positive 9%. At the same time, the Nasdaq 100 Index saw earnings growth decline from over 35% in Q2 2025 to under 15% in Q4.
Simeon Hyman, global investment strategist at ProShares, said during this week's CNBC's "ETF Edge" podcast that the rotation that began away from the Mag 7 tech stocks well before the war merits a deeper look from investors at a time of market uncertainty.
"We think one of best ways to take advantage of it is through quality stocks, companies growing their dividends for 25 consecutive years at minimum and that have been out of favor," he said.
While the reversal began before the outbreak of war, Hyman said high quality, lower volatility stocks may be "kind of good to have during a conflict."
"It's not only the price [of the stocks] turning around but the fundamentals turning around," he said. "Go back four quarters and all the earnings growth was coming from the tech sector and Nasdaq 100. Those dividends growers year-over-year, earnings were shrinking a little bit. But now the gap has closed and may shortly go the other way. We're almost now to parity," he said, referring to Bloomberg data cited by ProShares in a recent blog post on the topic.
ProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats ETF (NOBL) is one of the many exchange-traded funds that offers exposure to large-cap U.S. stocks that pay healthy dividends. Its top three holdings are Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Target.
ETF experts agree that the outlook for dividend stocks has improved across the market.
"Growth characteristics of companies in the financial sector, the health care sector, the industrial sector ... those are where you often find dividend growth. They continue to experience more and more growth," Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, told CNBC.
A long history of dividend increases reflects consistent cash flow and disciplined management, however, it has not traditionally matched the rapid profit expansion seen in the technology sector. But strong operating performance and improving margins have helped boost profits for many dividend-payers from other sectors. And as earning rise, these companies continue to increase dividends while strengthening their balance sheets. At the same time, expectations for technology stocks remain extremely high after several years of strong gains, and as tech firms are spending huge sums on AI buildouts which is stressing their balance sheets and cash flow. Dividend-paying companies outside of tech often trade at more moderate valuations, and as their earnings growth improves, investors may increasingly view them as offering both stability and expansion.
Of course, if the U.S.-Iran war — and factors such as oil prices persistently above $100 and a Strait of Hormuz closure that is prolonged — pushes up prices across a supply-depleted economy and sends the global economy into a recession, there is no sure thing for stock investors. Dividend stocks and the ProShares NOBL ETF have been caught up in the recent stock market negative sentiment, down 5% in the past month but still up close to 8% over the past year.
Hyman said in his view this is "certainly not a time to capitulate, but maybe a time to tweak around the edges," and focus more on quality stories. "We love our dividend growers," he said.
He noted that after the two prior Gulf wars which were prolonged conflicts, stocks were higher in the six to 12-month periods after initial pullbacks, and up by as much as 25-30%. "The history is pretty darn clear ... markets do rebound," he said.
The history is also clear, Hyman said, on dividend stock outperformance having "some durability to it." And right now, these stocks are pulling even more weight in the market. "In addition to the durable outperformance opportunity from the dividend growers, the other thing that is very important is that it has kept overall S&P 500 fundamentals stable" Hyman said. "They are now filling the gap," he said, as mega cap tech earnings growth slides, "and that suggests a little bit of a soft landing," he added.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter that goes beyond the livestream, offering a closer look at the trends and figures shaping the ETF market.