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Dividend pay-outs, while rising, have failed to match this year’s strong rally in the benchmark S&P index – which is up 8.2 per cent – and sits just shy of last April’s post-financial crisis peak.

Since the start of 2012, so-called “dividend aristocrats”, companies that have increased their pay-outs for the past 25 years, have lagged the S&P with a rise of 4.9 per cent. That comes after they strongly outperformed the broad benchmark’s flat performance last year with a gain of 5.7 per cent.

With interest rates anchored at historic lows, the question now is whether companies will hand that cash to shareholders in the form of higher pay-outs. Investors, for example, are waiting to see if Apple, which sits on nearly $100bn in cash, could issue a dividend for the first time.

“We think 2012 will be the year that dividends grow faster than earnings,” said Chris Leavy, chief investment officer for US equities at BlackRock.