Taiwan Dividend Policy & Payout Record — only what has already happened
The most common question on a dividend page is “how much next year”. We do not answer it, and no field here tries to. A dividend is the outcome of a board proposal and a shareholder resolution, driven by the year's earnings, statutory reserves, capital plans and management judgement — none of which can be extrapolated from a payout series. Averaging five years to project the sixth mistakes a governance decision for a time series. What is here is the declared and distributed record, plus the formulas behind it.
What the fields are and what state each is in
Yearly cash and stock dividends (with both the earnings year and the actual distribution year, which differ and are often confused), payout ratio, ex-dividend and payment dates, and the reference price. Each row is marked declared or distributed; a declared but not-yet-ex dividend is not folded into historical averages. No field is an estimate — an unpublished year is left blank and marked undetermined rather than carried forward or zero-filled.
The ex-dividend reference price is a formula, not a promise
It is mechanical: the prior close less the cash dividend per share, with an equivalent adjustment for stock dividends. Its purpose is to keep the price series comparable across the ex date instead of showing a gap that never traded. It says nothing about whether the price recovers. We publish no recovery probability, no “days to close the gap” expectation and no entry or exit guidance.
A yield is an arithmetic ratio, not a future return
Yield is past declared or paid dividends divided by today's price — the numerator is entirely historical and neither end contains the future. A falling price raises the yield automatically, and the reason the price fell may be precisely an expectation of smaller dividends ahead, so a high yield is frequently a symptom rather than a signal. We disclose which payments the numerator uses, which earnings years they belong to and which closing price the denominator took, and we publish no high-yield ranking and no income-stock list.
Payout ratio and sustainability: data, not a verdict
A payout above 100% means the year's distribution exceeded the year's earnings, drawing on retained earnings or capital surplus. That is a description, not a ruling of unsustainability — some firms do it for years with sound reasons. We place payout ratio, earnings, operating cash flow and the distribution side by side and leave the reading to you. No dividend score, no ranking, no target price, no signal.