That's a quarterly dividend, so if you automatically re-invest dividends thats .5% compounded 4x during a year. If you're investing in stocks, you're usually n

That's a quarterly dividend, so if you automatically re-invest dividends thats .5% compounded 4x during a year. If you're investing in stocks, you're usually not thinking that the dividend will be your greatest return. Dividends usually indicate one of two things - 1) the company is healthy and profitable 2) the company has a massive cash pile. In the case of Microsoft it was both, but primarily the mountain of cash they used to have (>$60bn) that got investors complaining that MS do something with the cash mountain. MS would easily have more cash than Apple if they didn't put in the effort to get rid of it over the past 5 years or so.