LOW Dividend Calculator
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Dividend growth rate (CAGR)
| Year | Start Balance | Start Shares | Share Price | Dividend / Share | Dividend Yield | Yield on Cost | Annual Dividend | Total Dividends | End Shares | End Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $10,000 | 46.65 | $219.18 | $4.99 | 2.28% | 2.14% | $265.22 | $265.22 | 58.93 | $12,917 |
| 2 | $12,917 | 58.93 | $224.11 | $5.79 | 2.58% | 2.56% | $378.65 | $643.87 | 71.45 | $16,014 |
| 3 | $16,014 | 71.45 | $229.16 | $6.71 | 2.93% | 3.04% | $523.33 | $1,167 | 84.34 | $19,327 |
| 4 | $19,327 | 84.34 | $234.31 | $7.77 | 3.32% | 3.61% | $707.63 | $1,875 | 97.73 | $22,899 |
| 5 | $22,899 | 97.73 | $239.59 | $9.00 | 3.76% | 4.28% | $942.46 | $2,817 | 111.82 | $26,789 |
| 6 | $26,789 | 111.82 | $244.98 | $10.43 | 4.26% | 5.09% | $1,242 | $4,059 | 126.83 | $31,069 |
| 7 | $31,069 | 126.83 | $250.49 | $12.09 | 4.83% | 6.07% | $1,626 | $5,685 | 143.05 | $35,832 |
| 8 | $35,832 | 143.05 | $256.12 | $14.01 | 5.47% | 7.25% | $2,118 | $7,803 | 160.85 | $41,198 |
| 9 | $41,198 | 160.85 | $261.89 | $16.23 | 6.20% | 8.72% | $2,755 | $10,559 | 180.72 | $47,328 |
| 10 | $47,328 | 180.72 | $267.78 | $18.80 | 7.02% | 10.54% | $3,584 | $14,143 | 203.27 | $54,431 |
S&P 500 is included only as a total-portfolio-value reference — it isn't the most meaningful benchmark for income-focused strategies. The 10% baseline reflects the index's long-term nominal total return (price + dividends), a reference rather than a forecast.
Historical dividends per share
Over the last 5 years, LOW's dividend grew 15.87%/yr and its share price grew 2.25%/yr. Forward yield: 2.26%. Yield drifted from 1.8% to 2.8%.
Based on dividends paid October 2011 to July 2026.
Recent dividends
| Ex-date | Cash amount | TTM yield | Fwd yield | Share price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-22 | $1.25 | 2.26% | 2.33% | $214.36 |
| 2026-04-22 | $1.20 | 1.96% | 1.96% | $245.19 |
| 2026-01-21 | $1.20 | 1.71% | 1.73% | $277.11 |
| 2025-10-22 | $1.20 | 1.93% | 1.97% | $243.53 |
| 2025-07-23 | $1.20 | 2.03% | 2.10% | $228.61 |
| 2025-04-23 | $1.15 | 2.11% | 2.11% | $217.76 |
| 2025-01-22 | $1.15 | 1.76% | 1.78% | $258.00 |
| 2024-10-23 | $1.15 | 1.67% | 1.70% | $270.11 |
| 2024-07-24 | $1.15 | 1.92% | 1.99% | $231.67 |
| 2024-04-23 | $1.10 | 1.88% | 1.88% | $233.56 |
| 2024-01-23 | $1.10 | 2.03% | 2.05% | $214.47 |
| 2023-10-24 | $1.10 | 2.31% | 2.36% | $186.24 |
Source: Polygon.io. Last 12 dividend distributions, most recent first. TTM yield = sum of this payment + (frequency − 1) prior payments ÷ share price on ex-date. Forward yield = this payment × detected payout frequency ÷ share price on ex-date.
About LOW
Lowe's Companies, Inc. — ticker LOW, NYSE-listed — is the second-largest home improvement retailer in the United States, behind The Home Depot. The company was founded in 1921 by Lucius S. Lowe as a small-town hardware store in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, and grew over the following century into a national big-box chain operating roughly 1,700 retail stores across the US. A short-lived Canadian operation was wound down and exited in 2022 as part of a portfolio rationalization push, leaving the company effectively US-focused. The current market capitalization sits in the $130-150 billion range, placing LOW in the large-cap retail segment alongside its larger duopoly partner.
The dividend track record is what places LOW in a small group of US equities most often selected by long-horizon income investors. The company has raised its per-share dividend every year for more than fifty consecutive years, with the streak beginning in 1961, which puts LOW well past the 25-year Dividend Aristocrat threshold and inside the smaller "Dividend King" group of streaks of fifty years or longer. The streak survived the 2000-2002 dot-com recession, the 2008-2009 financial crisis (which was particularly painful for home-improvement retailers because it coincided with a US housing collapse), the 2020 COVID disruption, and the 2022-2024 housing affordability slowdown driven by elevated mortgage rates. The continuity through the 2008-2009 episode is the more meaningful test, because it sits directly inside the housing downturn that defines the worst-case macro scenario for the home improvement category.
The business mix is what differentiates LOW from its larger peer. Roughly 75% of revenue comes from DIY consumers — homeowners buying their own paint, tools, lumber, and fixtures for personal projects — while approximately 25% comes from Pro contractors. The Home Depot mix is closer to 50/50 and skews more heavily toward the professional channel. This DIY tilt makes LOW more directly exposed to consumer discretionary spending on home improvement, housing-resale turnover (since people often remodel after buying), and the broader strength of the US housing cycle. Under CEO Marvin Ellison, who took the role in 2018, the company has worked on closing inefficient stores, exiting Canada, raising operating margins to narrow the historical gap with HD, and expanding e-commerce and Pro contractor share. Operating margins have moved up over that window though still sit modestly below HD's. Expense ratio is not applicable to individual stocks — the figure you'll see in the calculator above is zero, since there is no fund wrapper between you and the underlying shares.
How LOW pays dividends
LOW pays cash dividends quarterly, on a roughly February-May-August-November cadence. Ex-dividend dates typically fall in the early part of January, April, July, and October, with pay dates following about three weeks later. Holders of record at the close on the day before the ex-date receive the distribution; the share price drops by approximately the per-share amount on the open of the ex-date. Most major brokers — Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, Interactive Brokers, Robinhood — support fractional-share DRIP for LOW, so the entire cash distribution is reinvested at the prevailing market price even when the per-share amount doesn't divide evenly into a whole number of shares.
The once-per-year hike pattern is consistent. The board typically announces the new annual dividend rate in mid-year, alongside a quarterly earnings release, with the new per-share amount taking effect on the following quarterly payment. The year-over-year dividend growth rate the calculator uses smooths this into an annualized figure. The historical pace of the per-share hike has run in the mid-to-high teens on a five-year rolling basis — well above the mid-single-digit hike rates produced by mature consumer-staples Aristocrats such as KO, CL, and KMB, and above the high-single-digit pace at the larger home-improvement peer HD. This is the central distinctive feature of LOW as a dividend grower.
Three forces explain why the per-share growth has run so high relative to the broader Aristocrat universe. The first is the payout ratio. LOW has typically distributed only 30-40% of earnings as dividends — much lower than the 55-70% payout ratios common at mature consumer-staples Aristocrats. A lower payout ratio leaves more headroom for dividend growth even in flat-earnings years, and it has allowed the company to hike the dividend at a faster pace than underlying earnings growth without endangering the streak. The second is share-count reduction from a substantial parallel buyback program. The buyback channel has historically reduced shares outstanding at a meaningful annual pace; per-share dividend growth depends on both the total dollar payout growth and the share count reduction the same payout is distributed over, and the buyback program has done amplifying work on the per-share figure that holders see. The third is the underlying earnings tailwind from the 2010-2021 housing super-cycle — a multi-year period of low mortgage rates, strong housing turnover, expanded remodeling activity, and post-COVID home-improvement spending. That cycle drove a structural lift in same-store sales that flowed through to earnings and ultimately to the dividend.
The forward yield sits in the low single digits — typically around 2% — which is low for an Aristocrat and well below the headline figures offered by mature consumer staples or high-yield dividend ETFs. This is the structural trade-off the LOW dividend profile presents: a lower starting yield in exchange for a much higher historical dividend growth rate. The calculator on this page uses the trailing five-year dividend growth rate to project the income line forward; you can override with a custom rate if you want to model a more conservative scenario in which the historical pace compresses going forward.
Who LOW suits
LOW suits the dividend-growth investor who prioritizes long-run yield-on-cost expansion over starting income, who has a multi-decade holding horizon, and who is comfortable with the cyclical exposure that comes with home-improvement retail. The structural math of the position is the case: a starting yield of roughly 2% growing at roughly 15% annually crosses, after seven to eight years of compounding, the income line a slower-growing 4-5% yield holding would have paid over the same period — and continues compounding past that crossover point. The trade-off only works if the high DGR pace continues, and the realized rate depends on housing-cycle dynamics that no investor can forecast with precision.
The cyclical exposure is the central caveat and worth naming explicitly. Home-improvement spending correlates with housing turnover, mortgage rate levels, consumer confidence, and the broader remodeling cycle. In housing-bust years the category contracts sharply, as 2008-2009 demonstrated. LOW kept raising the dividend through that period — protecting the streak — but earnings compressed materially and the stock traded down well past 50% from peak. Holders who buy expecting smooth compounding need to underwrite the possibility of multi-year drawdowns and a temporary deceleration in the dividend growth rate even when the streak itself remains intact.
In taxable accounts LOW dividends qualify for the long-term capital-gains rate, given the standard sixty-day holding-period rule (the share must be held for more than sixty days during the 121-day window centered on the ex-date). Most buy-and-hold investors clear this easily. In tax-advantaged accounts the qualified treatment is moot because no current-year tax applies; the structural advantage of holding a long-streak grower in an IRA or Roth IRA is that the DRIP compounding runs without tax friction on the reinvested distributions.
Compared to broad dividend-focused ETFs such as SCHD, LOW offers concentrated single-stock exposure to a specific cyclical sector — US home improvement retail — rather than a diversified basket spread across sectors. A LOW investor accepts company-specific risk including housing-cycle exposure, competition from HD, e-commerce disruption from Amazon and direct-to-consumer brands, and execution risk on the ongoing margin-convergence strategy. As with any single-stock position, this content is educational only; it is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold LOW, and individual circumstances vary.
Hypothetical scenarios
Scenario 1: LOW vs HD — the home-improvement duopoly
The US home improvement category is effectively a two-name duopoly. Lowe's (LOW) and The Home Depot (HD) together account for the dominant share of national big-box home-improvement retail; the remaining share is fragmented across regional chains, hardware-store franchises, and online channels. For a dividend-focused investor evaluating the category, the practical question is rarely "LOW or nothing" — it is "LOW or HD, or both as a basket." The two names have different structural shapes, and the choice depends on which features the holder weights more heavily.
The size and operating-margin comparison favors HD on most measurable dimensions. HD's market cap sits in the $350 billion range — roughly 2.5x LOW's — and HD's operating margin runs around 14% versus LOW's 12%, the result of HD's longer-running operational efficiency program and its heavier mix of higher-margin Pro contractor business. HD's revenue mix runs closer to 50/50 between Pro and DIY, where LOW skews approximately 75% DIY and 25% Pro. The Pro channel is more recurring because contractors buy on a project schedule rather than on personal-discretion timing, which is a real structural difference in the quality of the revenue stream.
The dividend streak comparison favors LOW on the metric that matters most to an Aristocrat-focused holder. LOW has raised the dividend every year since 1961 — a streak exceeding fifty consecutive years, putting it inside the "Dividend King" group. HD has a long but shorter streak: HD paused its dividend hikes during the 2008-2010 financial crisis and only restarted growth afterward, which means HD is not classified as a Dividend Aristocrat under the strict 25-consecutive-year-of-increases definition. For an investor whose holding thesis is built on the streak signal itself, that distinction is structurally meaningful — LOW kept raising through the worst housing-related downturn in modern US history; HD did not.
The yield and dividend-growth-rate comparison runs in the other direction. HD typically offers a higher dividend yield than LOW — reflecting HD's larger payout ratio and slower hike pace — while LOW has historically produced a much faster dividend growth rate, with five-year rolling DGR in the mid-to-high teens versus HD's high-single-digits to low-double-digits. This is the classic income-versus-growth trade-off inside a single sector: HD pays you more today, LOW grows what it pays you faster. Over a long enough holding window the math favors the faster grower if the pace persists; over shorter windows the higher starting yield delivers more cumulative income.
Many income-focused holders hold both LOW and HD as a paired position rather than choosing between them. The duopoly structure means the two stocks tend to be correlated to the same macro variables — housing turnover, mortgage rates, consumer spending on home goods — so the diversification benefit between them is modest. The argument for holding both is less about diversification and more about capturing both ends of the income-versus-growth profile inside the same sector exposure: HD anchors the current-income side, LOW the growth side. The argument against holding both is that the high correlation makes the basket roughly equivalent to holding more of either single name, with the same sector-level cyclical exposure either way.
A third structural point worth flagging: LOW's margin-convergence strategy is the active variable in the comparison. If LOW can close the operating-margin gap with HD over the next several years — the strategic goal under Ellison — earnings growth at LOW would accelerate above HD's even at flat revenue, and the historical DGR pattern would have more underlying earnings support. If the gap stays open or widens, LOW's high DGR pace becomes harder to sustain because it would increasingly depend on payout-ratio expansion and buybacks rather than earnings. This is the asymmetric thesis embedded in holding LOW over HD on a multi-year view.
Scenario 2: Cyclical housing exposure and the trailing-DGR projection
The calculator on this page projects the LOW dividend income line forward using the trailing five-year dividend growth rate — currently somewhere in the mid-to-high teens. Forward projections that use trailing DGR carry an implicit assumption: that the structural and cyclical conditions producing the historical pace continue at a comparable rate into the projection window. For LOW that assumption deserves explicit examination, because the recent historical DGR has been driven in part by tailwinds that may not persist on the same trajectory.
The structural component of the historical DGR is likely durable. LOW's 30-40% payout ratio leaves meaningful room for the dividend to grow faster than underlying earnings, which means the dividend can be raised at an above-earnings pace for several years without endangering the streak. The parallel share-buyback program amplifies per-share dividend growth by reducing share count, and as long as the company continues to generate free cash flow above what dividends and capex absorb, the buyback channel will continue to do work on the per-share figure. These two features — low payout, active buybacks — are structural and likely to persist in some form.
The cyclical component is less durable. A meaningful portion of the 2010-2021 DGR was supported by the US housing super-cycle: low mortgage rates from 2010 through 2021, strong housing turnover, expanded remodeling activity during the 2020-2021 COVID home-improvement boom, and broad strength in consumer spending on durable goods. That cycle has measurably decelerated since 2022 as mortgage rates moved up, housing affordability compressed, and post-COVID home-improvement spending normalized. The forward question is whether the deceleration is a permanent regime shift or a mid-cycle pause; investors disagree, and the answer affects what realized DGR will be over the next five to ten years.
The calculator output is most usefully read as a structural illustration rather than a forecast. A 2% starting yield growing at 15% annually crosses, after roughly seven to eight years of compounding, the cumulative income that a 4-5% yield holding with mid-single-digit growth would have paid over the same period — and continues compounding from there. That math is the structural argument for low-yield-high-DGR positions in general and is the math the calculator makes explicit. The realized outcome depends on whether the 15% pace continues. If the pace compresses to 8-10% as housing cyclicality drags on earnings growth, the crossover point moves several years further out, and the cumulative income gap between LOW and a higher-yield slower-grower narrows. The streak itself is likely to survive even in a compressed-DGR scenario — LOW's 50+ year history through multiple housing cycles supports that — but the slope of the income line is the cyclical variable.
For a dividend-growth-focused holder, LOW illustrates the structural shape of holding a low-yield-high-growth Aristocrat: most of the income return comes years into the holding period rather than in the first few years, and the realized trajectory depends meaningfully on cycle dynamics that no investor can forecast with confidence. The calculator math shows what the position looks like if the trailing pace continues; the responsible reading is to also model a slower-growth scenario by overriding the DGR input with a more conservative figure — perhaps the long-run average of high single digits — and comparing the two projections side by side. Educational only; not a forecast.
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Sources & methodology
Dividend history and price data come from Polygon.io's reference and aggregates endpoints. Forward yield is computed as the sum of the most recent four cash distributions divided by the previous-close share price. The dividend growth rate shown on this page is the compound annual growth rate of total annual distributions across the available history in this snapshot.
Last updated: 2026-05-30.
Information here is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Past dividend history does not guarantee future payments. Verify all figures with the issuer or a registered financial advisor before making investment decisions.
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