Some of Alpha’s Board members are worried that shareholders are expecting a dividend next year and that announcing plans to skip next year’s dividend will lower the stock price today. Suppose Alpha were to announce instead that it plans to pay its usual dividend one year from now and that it has no plans for any new investment at T = 1. What will happen to the stock price today?

Explanation: A listed company that does not invest at least to keep the market growing pace, could be seen as company without ambition, therefore, more likely to lose market share against competitors, therefore to lose revenue, to lose present value and the stock price falls. Since the stock price of a company is based entirely on the value expectation of the company in the future, informing to the market that Alpha is not going to make any investment next year is the same that declaring company is expected to remain at the same size and operation levels than the current year. This view of stagnation is against the common belief that the market is growing naturally by population growth and the increasing capacities of the technology to unlock a new source of market growth (new product categories, geographies, needs).