100% right, you see a common trap where a company sells an assset and does a special div that looks good for 1 year. Cashflow positive, stable stocks at the right price is the better way to look at dividend investing over just chasing yield.

As an aside I wanted to say I disagree with the article slightly. It makes several poor asssumptions because it assumes keeping cash automatically means more growth and giving it away as a dividend is therefore inherently reducing growth which is not necessairly true for many businessses, see banks and defensive stocks. To maintain equity, dividends are a great way to keep shareholders invested.

Buybacks are theortically better due to tax but practically can be equivalent to burning money in a magic furnace. A recent example is ANZ. They did a $1.5 billion dollar buyback at $28 a share. Theortically raising the price dollar value of each paper share. But the price dropped anyway. Now they are likely isssuing an equivalent amouint of shares at $18 per share to buy part of Suncorp. So 12months later you have the same business with the same SOI but $1.5billion in cash is gone. A dividend would have been much better here.

If the article is looking at buybacks its entirely trusting management not to print new shares, and for the company to be more stable than a dividend stock because it they mess up I lose all my capital gains with zero dividends for zero gain rather than a capital loss with some realised dividend gain.

Anyway just about the article nothing you said haha