Nearly 200 U.S.-listed companies stopped paying a dividend in 2020, but most have restored them. Four years later, almost 50 are holding off as inflation and higher interest rates slow their path to full recovery. 

Call them the dividend holdouts. Companies including Boeing and Carnival, for example, have placed other financial priorities ahead of reviving their dividend, such as reducing leverage, addressing production problems, and making capital investments.

In 2020, 187 companies suspended or canceled their dividend to preserve cash as the COVID-19 pandemic pressured their balance sheets, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, a data provider. Thirty-nine restored their dividend that same year, followed by 53 in 2021 and 31 in 2022. That pace has since slowed, with nine companies, including Disney, Delta Air Lines, and Hyatt Hotels, reviving the investor payouts in 2023 and so far one, commercial printer Quad/Graphics, this year.

That leaves 47 companies, or roughly a quarter, that haven’t revived their dividend, with seven other companies delisting in recent years. These holdouts include some of America’s largest listed companies—American Airlines Group, Aptiv, Boeing, Carnival, Expedia Group, Royal Caribbean Cruises, and Western Digital—which are all in the S&P 500. Household names like Abercrombie & Fitch and Dave & Buster’s also haven’t brought back their dividend.

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Darren Gondry has owned his four-bedroom home near a golf course in Louisville, Ky., since 2004. He and his wife, Lori Gondry, paid off their primary mortgage in 2021.

That hasn’t stopped other bills associated with homeownership from piling up. Their home insurance costs have risen 63% in two years. Their property taxes, utility costs, and homeowners’ association fees have risen in recent years, too.

“I was so sticker-shocked,” Gondry said of the mounting home-cost increases. “I fear they’re here to stay.”

Homeownership affordability fell to its lowest level since the 1980s last year as mortgage rates reached a 23-year high and home prices set new records.

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A cutting-edge code breaker and geometer, Simons helped pioneer a revolution in trading, embracing a computer-oriented, quantitative style in the 1980s well ahead of the Wall Street crowd. He and his team employed trading algorithms and artificial intelligence to outperform the market—and the likes of Warren Buffett and George Soros. Later, Simons became a political donor and an influential philanthropist in the worlds of science, health, and education.

Simons, the son of a Boston shoe factory executive, developed an early passion for mathematics and ignored the advice of the family physician who urged him to steer clear of the field because he wouldn’t make a living. The warning proved misplaced.

Simons began his career as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. He proved popular with students. One year, Simons amused a graduate class by confessing that he didn’t know much about the topic—partial differential equations— but that he viewed teaching the course as a good way to learn.

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People are often confused as to what documents to keep in their files. Records relating to tax and legal matters, healthcare issues, assets and liabilities, as well as other important transactions should be kept in case they are needed in the future.

In this checklist, we cover a number of documents that you should consider keeping in case you encounter any number of issues.

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