When a stock sells for $20, a $2 per share dividend results in a 10 percent yield, but drop the stock price to $10, and suddenly you’ve got a 20 percent yield. If investors are sure that the high yield will hold up, they’ll buy the stock just for that. This will put a floor under the stock price. Blue chips with long records of paying and raising dividends are the stocks people flock to in any sort of crisis.
