Pfizer Goes Limp:

It appears that Pfizer's intended acquisition of Wyeth, their recent dividend cut and future investing prospects have caused a lot of buzz in the blogsphere with many investors taking a stab at PFE.

the moneygardener,

"Whether management would have cut the dividend if not for the Wyeth purchase is beside the point. The trend was not your friend as an investor in Pfizer. While it is nice to receive an ever increasing dividend, the earnings per share trend must be in tact to back the dividend up. Failure to provide a solid earnings trend will lead to an impotent dividend.

Dividend Tree,

"The marriage between PFE and WYE is not a union of two love birds. It’s just a short term convenience driven by PFE’s need to soar the bottom line. In fact, I would send kudos to WYE management who has wrestled out good value for WYE shareholders."

The Dividend Guy,

"As I do with every stock holding that I own does not work out the way I planned I thought back to why I was holding onto Pfizer. It was due to that dividend and the strong dividend growth over the years. However, now that I think about it more and more this dividend growth and high dividend yield clouded my judgement and did not allow me to look at the real facts. This was a company that was in a decline and it was threatening that it would only get worse with some key drugs coming off of patent. It seems that the only way out of this for Pfizer was the acquisition of Wyeth and the impact was the company could no longer afford their high dividend."

Dividend Growth Investor,

"The major issue with Pfizer has been its inability to bring to market new blockbuster drugs, which would replace the revenues that the company would lose as a large portion of its drugs lose their patents around 2011-2012. Lipitor, which accounts for a quarter of company’s sales, is losing its patent in 2011. Despite spending between $7.2 and $8.1 billion annually on R&D over the past four years, Pfizer has not come out with any blockbuster drugs to replace the revenues its will lose from its major drugs that will be losing their patents. Some analysts estimate that Pfizer will lose 50% to 70% of its revenues by 2015 if it doesn’t bring new drugs to the market. Despite major cost cutting initiatives, the potential losses in revenues could potentially put the dividend payment in danger. Most recently Pfizer failed to increase its dividend to shareholders for the first time in 42 years. Right after the merger announcement, Pfizer's board also announced a 50% cut in its quarterly dividends to $0.16/share."