dividends

Three prominent London Business School academics have calculated the FTSE 100 has a 50% chance of hitting the 10,000 level by 2022, following its recent record-breaking performance.

Witan investment trust has become the tenth investment trust to grow its annual dividend for 40 consecutive years, according to the Association of Investment Companies.

'No investment case for oil majors'

Old Mutual Global Investors income manager Stephen Message is running one of the largest overweights to financials in his sector, in the expectation UK banks are set to return cash to shareholders.

Royal Dutch Shell is planning to slash its spending by $15bn over the next three years, following a collapse in the oil price.

Dividends from UK firms last year grew at the slowest rate since 2010 as the strong pound continued to weight on payouts.

M&G has written to investors in its £9.5bn Global Dividend fund and acknowledged "there may well have been some complacency" around underperforming stocks in 2014.

Investors are continuing to fall into the 'trap' of buying companies with a high dividend yield, according to Invesco Perpetual's Mark Barnett.

UK companies are acting as a drag on an otherwise buoyant global dividend outlook, according to Hendersons' Global Dividend Index.