As anyone who owns CSL Ltd (ASX: CSL) shares would be painfully aware, it has been a brutal few weeks to own this ASX 200 healthcare stock, and former market darling.
Back on 11 May, CSL lost almost 16% of its value in one session after reporting that it is expecting even lower revenues and profits than it had previously flagged for FY2026.
Investors responded by giving the company its worst one-day session in history. Of course, CSL was already on the nose with investors. Far from its halcyon days of over $340 a share in early 2020, the company lost more than half of its valuation between August 2025 and May 2026. And that was before that one-day car crash.
This has been devastating for many CSL investors, especially for those who have held on for years. The company today is at a price it first reached more than ten years ago. And it's not like CSL has paid out a lot in dividends over that time to make up for the loss of shareholder capital.
But now we are on the subject of dividends, let's dive in a little deeper, for something very interesting is happening on the CSL income front.
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What's happening with the dividend on CSL shares?
As any good dividend investor knows, a company's dividend yield is the function of two metrics. The first is the raw dividends per share that a company declares and pays out. But that alone doesn't determine a company's dividend yield. It is also influenced by its share price. A company can increase its dividends every single year. Yet if its share price rises at an even faster rate, its running yield will fall. The opposite is also true, though, which brings us to CSL.
On the first factor, CSL remains a winner. The company has been growing its annual payouts for more than a decade. Its final dividend last year was the largest it has ever funded (in US dollar terms), coming in at US$1.62 per share. The interim dividend that investors bagged last month was tied for its largest interim payout, matching last year's US$1.30 per share.
If we combine this with the fact that CSL shares are at a ten-year low, it may come as no surprise to see that its yield is currently at a record high. For much of CSL's recent history, investors would be lucky to see the company trade on a yield above 1%. Today, it is sitting at 3.08% (at the time of writing), ahead of Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA), if you can believe it.
Of course, just because CSL is trading with an historically high dividend yield doesn't mean it's a screaming buy. If CSL's profits are sagging, the company might be forced to cut its payouts next year. This, as we've already discussed, would naturally bring the company's yield back down. Even so, it's a very interesting development to see this company hit a 3% dividend yield. Let's see what happens next.
