There is one issue that I can see with this, which is when the stock is valued near to some calculated future value of dividends. The price of a stock can go do

There is one issue that I can see with this, which is when the stock is valued near to some calculated future value of dividends. The price of a stock can go down while the dividend remains constant. Hence, some will take up coal stocks that now have a high dividend for the value of the stock; essentially a discount (which may in this way be naturally corrected). However, in terms of capital available to a company, often a company needs enthusiastic investors (Uhm... WeWork anybody?) that generate funds for large capital expenses. Since you worked at BlackRock, I'll take your word for it that the former will not take preference over the latter. I'm too young to have money to invest and don't know enough about the nuances for big time issuer companies to know the exact impact of Fink's [1] move. [1] The CEO of BlackRock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_D._Fink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_D._Fink