Dividend yield

Dividend yield is the income a holding pays relative to its current value:

yield = dividends over the trailing period / current value

It answers "what is this position paying me, on what it is worth now". The holdings table shows it alongside a dividends over twelve months column, which is the cash amount rather than the percentage. For closed positions that column reads as lifetime dividends instead, since a trailing twelve month window means little once you no longer hold it.

The denominator is the catch

Yield has price in the denominator, so it moves whenever the price moves, even if the dividend never changes.

A position whose price falls by a third shows a yield that rises by half, having paid you nothing extra. This is the single most misread number in income investing: a yield that climbs on its own is usually reporting a falling price, not improving income. The dividend amount column is the one to check when a yield changes, because it tells you whether the numerator actually moved.

The mirror image also holds. A position that has risen sharply will show a falling yield while paying you exactly as much as before.

Trailing, not forward

This yield is built from dividends that have actually been paid, over the trailing window. It is not a forecast, and Gylder does not project what a holding will pay next year on the strength of what it paid last year.

That means a recently cut dividend keeps showing in the figure until it ages out of the window, and a recently raised one takes time to show up fully. The Dividends tab plots the payment history over time, which makes cuts and rises visible in a way a single trailing number cannot.

Yield against price versus yield against cost

This page is about yield on current value. The related figure, yield on cost, divides the same income by what you originally paid instead. The two answer genuinely different questions and it is worth being clear which one you are reading.