Real yield is the dividend yield a stock pays after subtracting local-currency inflation. Two stocks paying the same headline 6% can deliver very different real income depending on whether their home country runs at 2% or 8% inflation.

Formula (Fisher)

We use the Fisher correction:

real_yield = (1 + nominal_yield) / (1 + inflation) − 1

For a stock paying 7% in a country with 2% inflation: 

(1.07 / 1.02) − 1 = 4.9% real yield

The simpler approximation real ≈ nominal − inflation (~5% here) is close at low inflation but understates the real value at high inflation.

Why Asian markets need this

Nominal-yield rankings often put Indonesia (~12%) and Pakistan (~10%) at the top. After Indonesia's ~2% CPI, the real yield is ~9.8% — still excellent. After Pakistan's ~25% CPI (2023), the real yield was deeply *negative* despite the headline number. Same applies to Turkey, Argentina and other high-CPI markets.

What we publish

For every dividend-paying Asian stock we track, we recompute real yield daily using:

  • Nominal yield from Yahoo Finance trailing-12m payouts.
  • Inflation from FRED monthly OECD-sourced CPI YoY where available, else World Bank annual CPI YoY.

Full country-by-country sources are documented in [methodology](/en/methodology).

How to use it

Use real yield to compare income across markets *within the same currency*. For cross-currency portfolios you also need to factor in the FX move — see the [calculator](/en/real-yield/calculator) which does both.

Limitations

  • Trailing yield can mislead if a one-off special dividend inflates the headline.
  • Inflation series are revised; figures shift slightly when statistical agencies update prior months.
  • Taiwan has no FRED CPI series and limited World Bank coverage; we exclude it from real-yield rankings rather than guess.