A 10-year U.S. Treasury bond now pays more income than 118 of America's biggest companies.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO) are all on that list.
Nvidia makes the point fastest. The company pays a dividend yield of 0.46%. The 10-year Treasury pays roughly 4.7%.
That is more than ten times the cash return, from the federal government, with no earnings risk attached.
Nvidia is not the outlier. It is the norm.
Only 3.85% Of The S&P 500 Still Beats A Government Bond
A dividend yield is simply the annual cash a company pays out divided by its share price. If a $100 stock pays $2 a year, the yield is 2%.
For most of modern market history, a meaningful slice of the S&P 500 paid more of that cash than a Treasury bond did.
In July 2016, the figure hit 63.4%, a record outside the COVID-19 crash, according to Ned Davis Research data circulated by Charles Schwab strategist Liz Ann Sonders.
As of July 31, 2026, that share had collapsed to 3.85%.
That is the lowest reading since May 2007.
Put differently, roughly 96 out of every 100 companies in America's benchmark index now hand shareholders less annual income than a piece of government paper.
118 Names Above $100 Billion, Yield Less Than The 10-Year Bond
A Benzinga Pro screen of U.S. companies with market values above $100 billion returned 118 tickers yielding less than the current 10-year Treasury.
Company | Dividend Yield
- Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU)0.06%
- Quanta Services Inc. (NYSE: PWR)0.07%
- Marvell Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MRVL)0.10%
- Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC)0.13%
- Progressive Corp. (NYSE: PGR)0.18%
- Howmet Aerospace Inc. (NYSE: HWM)0.20%
- Alphabet Inc. 0.26%
- Lam Research Corp. (NASDAQ: LRCX)0.34%
- Apple Inc.0.34%
- Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META)0.38%
- Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT)0.43%
- Nvidia Corp.0.46%
- KLA Corp. (NASDAQ: KLAC)0.49%
- Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE: DELL)0.58%
- Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA)0.61%
- Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST)0.63%
- Amphenol Corp. (NYSE: APH)0.65%
- Broadcom Inc. 0.71%
- Visa Inc. (NYSE: V)0.73%