Treasury bond yields hover near record lows, and U.S. companies face restrictions on issuing dividends if they accept COVID-19 stimulus funds. Moreover, Goldman Sachs estimates dividends for S&P 500 stocks will decline by 25% this year. Which stocks can investors turn to for stable distributions and relatively high dividend yields? Today’s visualization shows 35 stocks that may meet this criteria, leveraging Goldman Sachs data as published by Forbes. The Dividend Stocks to Watch To compile the list, Goldman Sachs identified stocks from the Russell 1000 index that met a number of requirements:...

Governments were offering subsidies and land grants to stimulate rapid industry growth – and in the period of 1868-1873, just after the American Civil War, an astonishing 33,000 miles of new railroad track were laid. Entrepreneurs and financiers started betting on ambitious enterprises like the Northern Pacific Railway – and as the transportation boom raged on, more than 60% of total U.S. stock market capitalization came from railroad related stocks....

Luckily, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) crunches the numbers every year, outputting an incredible flow diagram that covers the broad spectrum of U.S. energy use. The 2019 version of this comprehensive diagram gives us an in-depth picture of the U.S. energy ecosystem, showing not only where energy originates by fuel source (i.e. wind, oil, natural gas, etc.) but also how it’s ultimately consumed by sector. In Perspective: 2019 Energy Use Below, we’ll use the unit of quads, with each quad worth 1 quadrillion BTUs, to compare data for the last five years of energy use in the United States....

The $1.52 trillion discretionary budget proposes boosts in funding that would help combat climate change, support disease control, and subsidize social programs. This graphic outlines some key takeaways from Biden’s budget proposal plan and highlights how funds could be allocated in the next fiscal year. U.S. Federal Budget 101 Before diving into the proposal’s key takeaways, it’s worth taking a step back to cover the basics around the U.S. federal budget process, for those who aren’t familiar....

Leveraging everything from basic apps to the blockchain, the changing dynamics of fintech are creating new investment opportunities everyday, growing its appetite with every new megadeal. Today’s graphic from Raconteur highlights the global growth of the fintech industry, the services with the most staying power, and major M&A developments of the past year as traditional institutions scramble to deal with this digital disruption. How Fintech Levels the Playing Field Over the past five years, digitally-enabled financial technology services have delivered convenient and cheaper access to financial services to millions of consumers....

After all, if creatives always did things the same way as everyone else, how could they ever produce anything original and truly unique? While it’s not always easy to do things differently, the most famous creative people throughout history have almost always followed their own paths. The end result, thankfully for us, is a wealth of original art that has served to inspire generation upon generation. Time Well Spent Today’s chart comes to us from Podio and it breaks down the daily routines of famous creative people, such as Pablo Picasso, Mozart, Maya Angelou, or Benjamin Franklin....

Together, BRICS represents 26.7% of the world’s land surface and 41.5% of its population. By GDP ranking, they’re also some of the most powerful economies in the world. But what drives their economies? We’re highlighting the top 10 biggest companies in each country, starting with Brazil. What Are the Biggest Public Companies in Brazil? Brazil isn’t just one of the largest and most diverse countries in the world, it is also an economic powerhouse....

In this graphic, we’ve visualized the top speeds of several animals and cars to show you how close the race really is. The data we used is also listed below in tabular format. At the top of this list is the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+, the first production car to reach a top speed of over 300 mph (482 km/h). The Super Sport 300+ is a limited edition variant of the regular Chiron, and only 30 examples (with a price tag of $4 million) are being built for the entire world....

But did you know there’s a way to get even more out of Visual Capitalist, all while helping support the work we do? New to VC+ in February 2021 VC+ is our members program that gives you exclusive access to extra visual content and insightful special features. It also gets you access to The Trendline, our new members-only graphic newsletter. So, what is getting sent to VC+ members in the coming weeks?...

Most recently, in the decade between 2010 and 2020, the top 1% of U.S. households’ portion of wealth has gone from 28.6% to 31.2%. However, when expressed in raw dollars, things begin to look different. Wealth during the same period for the 1% went from approximately $17.5 trillion to $35 trillion. Meanwhile, the total wealth pool rose from $60 trillion to $112 trillion. In other words, all households by category have amassed wealth during the same period, albeit at different rates....

The global pandemic put a significant dent in the commercial aspect of many sports. Even though the teams and their owners earned significantly less during this period, individual athletes actually thrived. According to the Forbes annual rankings of the world’s highest-paid athletes for 2021, the top 50 of them turned in a record-setting year and made nearly $2.8 billion in 12 months, beating 2019’s record total by more than $150 million....

At this macro level, the global population is growing considerably – but at the micro level, the numbers are all over the map. It’s expected that some countries like Nigeria will see population numbers quadruple by 2100, while other places like China will see a decline by almost 40%. This raises the question: how different do the regions of the world look in 80 years, in terms of population?...

Aside from their massive populations and geographical proximity in Asia, the two nations also have deep cultural histories and traditions, growing amounts of influence on the world stage, and burgeoning middle classes. China and India combine to be home to one-third of the world’s megacities, and they even had identical real GDP growth rates of 6.1% in 2019, based on early estimates by the IMF. Diverging Demographics But aside from the obvious differences in their political regimes, the two populous nations have also diverged in another way: demographics....

Although stocks see more volatility than other assets, they have also averaged a real return of 6.7% per year between 1925 and 2014, compared to just 2.7% for bonds and 0.5% for cash. And over long periods of time, the extraordinary power of compounding can turn this differential into a wealth generation machine. But What is a Stock Market? There is no denying the stock market’s unparalleled ability to create wealth, but that doesn’t mean it’s always an easy sell to newcomers....

on Did you know that nearly one-fifth of all the gold ever mined is held by central banks? Besides investors and jewelry consumers, central banks are a major source of gold demand. In fact, in 2022, central banks snapped up gold at the fastest pace since 1967. However, the record gold purchases of 2022 are in stark contrast to the 1990s and early 2000s, when central banks were net sellers of gold....

ATAC Resources Ltd. (ATC:TSX-V) is a well-funded, Yukon-based exploration company focused on developing Canada’s only Carlin-type gold discoveries at its 100% owned Rackla Gold Project. 1,700 sq/km Rackla Gold Project hosts two distinct trends: Nadaleen and Rau The Nadaleen Trend hosts the only drill confirmed Canadian Carlin-type gold mineralization at the Osiris, Conrad, Isis, Isis East, Sunrise and Anubis zones 2012 Exploration Completed 37,100 m of drilling on-schedule and on-budget Drilling continues to outline at or near-surface gold mineralization along the anticlinal crest of the Conrad Zone Newly discovered Anubis Zone located 10 km west of the Osiris area intersects 8....

Banks Hit With Record Fines for Forex Manipulation [Chart] The Chart of the Week is a weekly feature in Visual Capitalist on Fridays. Few things in life are guaranteed. There’s death and taxes of course, but is anything else inevitable? We’d say the cat and mouse game between regulators and financial institutions ranks up there. The rodents are usually pretty elusive, but this week the cat had them cornered and made off with their lunch....

Black Swans on the Horizon [Chart] The Chart of the Week is a weekly feature in Visual Capitalist on Fridays. The folks at Société Générale, France’s third largest bank, are avid birdwatchers. When they are not busy getting hawked by regulators for scandals, they are trying to spot the next black swan on the horizon that could have a profound negative or positive impact on the markets. By definition, black swans are not seen by everyone....

Today, around 6,000 officially classified products pass through the world’s ports, and digital products and services zip across country lines creating an extra layer of difficulty in measuring economic activity. To try to understand this enormous level of economic complexity, the team at Harvard’s Growth Lab have created the Country Complexity Ranking. Here’s a look at the top 50 countries in the ranking: Source Japan, Switzerland, and South Korea sit at the top of the ranking....

Data Shows Investing is Heavily Biased by Geography For investors, there’s no place like home. Data shows that investors are heavily sector-biased based on where they live. Openfolio.com, a platform tracking the performance and activity of 40,000 investors, calculated the overall popularity for the top 2,000 stocks and funds owned by its users in the United States. The data was then segmented based on sector and geography. The results are clear: the West Coast of the United States loads up on tech stocks and the Northeast loves financials more than anyone else....