If you're looking for yield, it may be a good time to look at dividend paying stocks. (Edited)

[A HERETIC I AM]

5. Just like with a bond, YOUR yield is determined by the price you pay.

1) I buy this stock at $10 and then it miraculously goes to $100. Then later, I get a dividend of $1. Do I calculate my dividend as 10% or 1%?

Since your original purchase price was ten bucks, your yield is still 10%. A purchaser at $100 however now has a yield of 1%. It matters only to the purchaser at the higher price that the yield has fallen. You invested $10/share and are getting $1.00 a year. That's ten percent anyway you want to look at it.

2) Same setup as question #1, but I get a dividend of $2. Does this count as the company raising their dividend or lowering it? Would this company get dropped by a plan using the DSIP that you mentioned above?

If the company raised their dividend amount, it would certainly be considered as an increase, but if I recall correctly, it would have likely been dropped from the list because the current yield dropped from 10% to 2% - ie; a $1 dividend on a ten dollar stock vs. a $2 dividend on a $100 stock. The DSIP program was set up to attract new investors, as well as chase the idea of a portfolio of stocks that had a history of raising dividends, and therefore overall yield.

I seems to me that the serious growth stocks tend to NOT pay dividends - there are always exceptions (!) - Facebook is a good example, but that is certainly still a new company - not a Proctor & Gamble or General Electric by any means, and they may of course start to pay dividends at any time. Remember that FB went from it's initial IPO price in the $30 range, down to around $18 and now trades at $124, yet they have not payed a dividend so far.

Neither scenario you suggest however is completely unrealistic. If you look at the history of Ford Motor Company share prices as an example, it has moved in a relatively narrow range, and for years they paid dividends sporadically, as opposed to quarterly. At the very bottom of the market back in late 08/early 09, Ford traded for a short time as low as $1.01, then steadily rose to almost $17 a year and a half later before settling back into their historical range, closing yesterday at $12.38 (back in the late 90's, Ford spiked up to over $30/share but it didn't last long).

Hope that answered your question.