The STOXX Americas Select Dividend 40 Index measures the performance of the highest dividend-paying stocks relative to their home markets.

This index is created based on the following conditions:

• Stocks are screened by defined historical non-negative dividend-per-share growth rates and dividend to earnings-per-share ratios.
• Index components are weighted by their indicated annual net dividend yield, i.e. the largest dividend-yielding companies have the highest weight in the index.
• Fixed component numbers and cap factors guarantee index diversification.
• All components have a dividend to earnings-per-share ratio of less than or equal to 60%.

The components of the STOXX Americas Select Dividend 40 Index are:

[TABLE=679]

Relative to the  S&P 500’s current yield of about 2%, all the U.S. stocks mentioned have higher yields. The only US banks in the list are New York Community Bancorp (NYB) and M&T Bank Corp (MTB). M&T recently agreed to buy Wilmington Trust(WL) for about $351 million. As per the deal, Wilmington Trust shareholders would receive about 0.05 shares of M&T stock for each share of Wilmington Trust and M&T would add $8.3 billion in deposits and $8.1 billion in loans. The majority of the U.S. constituents in the index come from the utility and telecom sectors which have traditionally paid out higher dividends. Cigarette makers Reynolds American (RAI), Altria Group (MO) and Lorillard (LO) have also consistently paid excellent dividends.

Among the Canadian stocks, except Royal Bank of Canada(RY) all other major banks are in the index. The tickers and dividend yields noted for IGM Financial, National Bank of Canada, Great-West Lifeco, Power Financial Corp and Power Corp. of Canada are based on their listing in the Toronto Exchange.