<<What exactly is an annualized dividend ? How is it computed and WHY? And in what way does it help ?>>

If I'm thinking of the right thing, it's just a company's quarterly dividend, multiplied by four, to reveal what the company pays out each year. If you're going to compute a company's dividend yield, you need to work off an annual number. (Annual dividend divided by the current stock price = dividend yield, for example.)

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