18. An excellent source of information on recent dividends is available at: www.

ex-dividend.com. Select free services for access to the latest dividend news, as well as lists of companies that have recently increased or decreased their dividends. Scan dividend news, increases and then decreases counting the number of companies on each list. Compare the number announcing dividends with the number increasing and the number decreasing their payouts. Write a short paragraph reconciling the result of your counts with what we’ve said about the signaling effect of dividends. Have you seen any of the firms decreasing dividends in the news lately? If so, what’s been going on?