Honestly you’ve hit on one of the dumb things about equity markets. In theory, markets shouldn’t care about lumpy numbers since you can always borrow to smooth

Honestly you’ve hit on one of the dumb things about equity markets. In theory, markets shouldn’t care about lumpy numbers since you can always borrow to smooth out your returns. In practice, dips and spikes see unwarranted reactions every time so firms will smooth out any figure they can, including dividends.