Originally Posted by
davidI
This.
To elaborate for those who don't follow, it's better for a company to re-invest profit rather than distribute dividends provided they have good returns on invested capital (ROIC).
The problem with dividends from the shareholder perspective is that you can't plan your withdrawals or tax strategy. That said, it still makes more sense for some companies to distribute than to do the share buybacks they've been doing at lofty valuations which end up rewarding management (if you as a shareholder wouldn't want to purchase stock at that price, why would you want management to do so?)