DIA: missing January 2010 dividend

Check here for DIA’s 2010 ex-dividend and payout dates

DIA dividend history, click to enlarge

DIA did not payout any dividend this January. It appears that DIA had paid a dividend every month since at least 2002, so this is a very unusual event. Looking through the dividend histories of the 30 companies on the Dow Jones Industrial 30 Index it appears that JP Morgan & Chase Co. (JPM) might have been the culprit. Their January dividend dropped to $0.05 from last year’s $0.38 number in January 2009. Since DIA’s January payout tends to be one of the lower ones the DIA people might have decided this decreased payout wasn’t worth the trouble.