Dow cut its quarterly payout from $0.70 to $0.35 per share starting with the August 2025 ex-dividend date, ending a payment the company held from May 2019 through May 2025. Dow sells polyethylene, industrial intermediates and performance materials into packaging, infrastructure, coatings and consumer markets. Shares closed at $29.02, giving it a market capitalization near $20.97 billion, and the stock remains down 36.93% over five years.
The reduced $0.35 quarterly rate has held steady across all three 2026 ex-dividend dates, leaving a current yield of 4.72%. On second-quarter coverage the lower payout has room for now, with operating cash flow of $1.331 billion, capital expenditures of $632 million and a $253 million dividend outlay. Trailing profitability is thinner: TTM earnings per share sit at -$1.79, and the first-quarter 2026 GAAP loss was $445 million. For full-year 2025, operating cash flow of $1.032 billion trailed a $1.490 billion dividend payout.
The balance sheet carries roughly $14 billion in total available liquidity and no substantial debt maturities until 2029. Chief Executive Karen Carter said Dow expects total self-help benefits to exceed $1.3 billion this year, up $200 million from the prior target, with its Transform to Outperform effort on track for about $700 million against a $2 billion total opportunity. Second-quarter packaging and specialty plastics operating EBIT swung to roughly $1.28 billion, from $71 million a year earlier.
Chief Financial Officer Jeff Tate said the company would prioritize any excess cash toward deleveraging, flagging intent to pay down “a little over a billion dollars” of accumulated debt. Third-quarter EBITDA is guided to about $1.7 billion, well below the second quarter.
LyondellBasell Industries, the world’s largest licensor of polyethylene and polypropylene technologies, whose shares recently traded at $63.71 for a market cap of $20.57 billion, faces a different problem. Its stated 6.41% yield rests on a trailing dividend per share of $4.12, but that figure reflects a payment the company no longer makes: LyondellBasell paid $1.37 quarterly through December 2025, then dropped to $0.69 across the March, June and August 2026 ex-dates. Second-quarter operating cash flow of $752 million against $270 million in capital spending and a $224 million dividend leaves a cushion, though first-quarter operating cash flow was negative $269 million on seasonal working capital. The company ended the quarter with $2.6 billion in cash and $7.1 billion in liquidity.
PPG‘s 2.70% yield is backed by $6.99 in trailing earnings per share and unbroken dividend increases since 1999, making it the steadiest of the three. For investors weighing dividend stocks for steady passive income, a high headline yield can mask a payout the balance sheet is straining to cover.