ASX investors love NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) stock.
How do we know? Well, we've covered the affinity that Australian investors have grown into here at the Fool for several months now.
Last month, I covered the most widely held US shares in stockbroker eToro's platform over the three months to 30 June 2024. Nvidia was the second-most widely held US stock for ASX investors then, only trailing popular electric vehicle and battery manufacturer Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA).
A few days later, my Fool colleague Bronwyn analysed the top 10 most traded ASX shares in June 2024, according to Selfwealth Ltd (ASX: SWF). Bronwyn found that Nvidia was the most traded US stock on SelfWealth over June, with 80.7% of the trades coming in as buys.
Nvidia, the American semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) titan, is a well-known growth stock, which probably at least partly explains its popularity here on the ASX. After all, this company has made many of its investors, particularly those who have held its shares for many years, very wealthy.
Nvidia stock has experienced a 22.7% decline since July 10th, but it has risen by an impressive 116.4% in 2024 alone. Over the past 12 months, the stock has gained 129.5%, and over the past five years, it has seen a massive increase of 2,608%.
So we know that Nvidia can be considered a growth stock. But what about dividends? If ASX investors buy Nvidia stock today, will they receive dividend income as well?
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Does Nvidia stock pay dividends?
Well, in a word, yes. US tech stocks aren't particularly known for their dividends. It was only earlier this year that Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META) announced their first-ever dividends. That's despite years of massive and ever-growing profits.
In stark contrast, Nvidia is an established dividend payer in the US markets. The company forked out its first dividend payment more than ten years ago, in 2013.
Adjusting for subsequent stock splits, that maiden dividend was worth 0.19 cents per share at the time. Like most US stocks, Nvidia pays out quarterly dividends. It kept up that 0.19 cents per share payout for the subsequent three quarters before its first dividend hike in 2014, which saw the company rise to doling out 0.21 cents per share.
The company subsequently ratcheted up its dividend payments every year until 2019, where they stabilised at 0.4 cents per share every quarter, for an annual total of 1.6 cents per share. This pattern continued until just this June. Alongside announcing Nvidia's latest stock split – a 10-for-1 division – the company revealed a whopping 150% rise in its quarterly dividends to 1 cent per share.
So long story short, yes Nvidia stock does pay dividends, and has done so for many years now. Saying that, the company's explosive share price gains in recent years have resulted in Nvidia stock trading on a dividend yield of just 0.038% today. That's as of last night's closing share price of US$104.25.
