The article presents the role and importance of a dividend in the process of investment decision-making. In case of a developed market a dividend or, in fact, dividend-related rate of return is of a particular importance due to its good informative value. Given the stock exchange development level in Poland, its importance is still inconsiderable, however, it may be used as a source of supplementary information helpful for other exchange analyses.

Moreover, the article makes an attempt to use certain alternatives to help in making investment decisions which are, in turn, affected by the dividend. These are the following indexes:

• payment;
• retainment;
• reinvestment.

The above measures allow also for determining the company's nature, i.e. whether the company has a tendency to grow or to generate profit. This has been illustrated on the example of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Companies' nature is crucial since investors, being more interested in profits obtainable directly from shares, will choose companies that reinvest their profits. Others, willing to benefit from dividend payments, will choose profitable companies.

Conclusions drawn based on the research allow to say that the measures presented, i.e. dividend and indexes, are undoubtfully important. Decisions made by an investor based on the above relations must be, as mentioned previously, based on several exchange analyses, and in particular based on the fundamental analysis. Application of recommendations suggested in the article is adequate in case of our capital market.