The first is that boards are still acutely aware that their shareholders are hungry for yield. Leading companies are raising their payouts, and signalling that the process will continue.

Rio Tinto for example last week lifted earnings by 21 per cent, boosted its June half-year dividend by 15 per cent, and said it was positioning for ‘‘materially increased cash returns to shareholders’’. It will reveal the prize in February when it announces its full-year profit:  Bank of America Merrill Lynch thinks it will have $US4.1 billion of surplus capital by then.

On Wednesday as the profit season shifted from a canter to a gallop CBA boosted its final dividend by 9 per cent to take payout for the year 10 per cent higher. Its dividends have risen by $1.45 a share or 57 per cent since 2006-2007.

In the mining sector, Oz Minerals tapped cash reserves to pay its third-consecutive half-year dividend of 10 cents a share despite posting an underlying loss of $14.3 million in the June half on top of a $62.5 million underlying loss in 2013.

Plasma products producer CSL boosted earnings by 8 per cent, annual dividend by 17 per cent, and said it was considering following up its current $950 million share buyback with another one of similar size.

Suncorp also announced on Wednesday that its cash earnings had more than doubled to $1.3 billion in the year to June, and it is sending all of it back to shareholders.

In 2012-13, it paid 75 cents including a special 20-cents-a-share dividend. The payout in the latest year is $1.05 a share, and includes a 30-cents-a-share special dividend. It totals $1.35 billion.

Suncorp’s increased payouts are in part a harvest from the successful overhaul of the group by managing director, Patrick Snowball, who took over in December 2010.

Suncorp’s shares have delivered price gains and dividends that equate to a 95 per cent return since then, compared with a 41 per cent return for the S&P/ASX 200 index, and a 79 per cent return for Suncorp’s financial and banking company peer group.

Suncorp is also paying big dividends because it knows that its shareholders want them, however.

It posted a 48.7 per cent higher $730 million bottom-line profit after booking a $496 writedown of intangibles in its life business that Snowball says ends his reconstruction job.

At the same time however he says is still looking for ‘‘efficiency-led’’ earnings growth in preference to revenue growth, which continues to be too costly to buy. No big acquisitions are contemplated, and if one was, Suncorp would effectively ask shareholders for permission, by going to them to raise new funds.

Companies and shareholders tend to see dividends differently at different times. When the markets are hot and revenue is falling out of the sky, boards often want to hold cash back for acquisitions or investment, and shareholders are often happy for them to do so.

The mood since the global crisis has been meaner, however. Shareholders want to maximise their investment yield. They want dividends and buybacks, and companies are trying to deliver.

At some point if this bull market continues to develop, that will change. Companies will try to retain a bigger piece of the earnings pie to fund expansion, and shareholders will let them do it.

That time does not appear to have arrived yet, however. I asked Patrick Snowball whether Suncorp detected any change in investor mood. Shareholders hadn’t liked the idea of management holding a ‘‘war chest’’ since the crisis, he said, and it was still "something that our shareholders don’t have an appetite for.’’

Snowball’s comment that boosting profit by delivering efficiency gains is more cost-effective than chasing earnings with revenue growth points to another continuing trend in the new profit reporting season. Australia’s leading companies are still operating in a low revenue growth environment, and relying heavily on cost cuts to deliver higher earnings growth.

It shows up in profit reports as a big spread between revenue growth and profit growth. Suncorp’s profit jump came for example on a revenue rise of only 1.1 per cent. Share registry group Computershare’s revenue was flat in the year to June 30, but its earnings rose by 9.9 per cent.

Rio Tinto’s 21 per cent underlying profit increase actually came on 3.8 per cent lower revenue as commodity prices softened.

The mining group shored up its top line by boosting volumes, particularly in iron ore when it still achieves attractive profit margins, but cost cuts were a crucial part of its profit growth equation.

It has cut operating costs by $US3.2 billion since 2012, and wants to rip another $US1 billion out by end of next year. Capital expenditure in the June half was also 48 per cent or $US3.35 billion lower than it was in the June half last year.