How might I get the list of firms that do not pay dividends?

Question

The following code is meant to narrow down the list of the tickers of public companies that have Bitcoin on their balance sheet (stored in list_of_tcks) to those that do not pay dividends (stored in leanCompanies).

#!/usr/bin/env python3

from yfinance import pdr_override, Ticker
    
def give_me_list_of_no_div_payers(list_of_tcks):
    list_refined = []
    list_of_payers = []
    for t in list_of_tcks:
        if len(Ticker(t).dividends) < 1:
            list_refined.append(t)
        elif len(Ticker(t).dividends) > 0:
            list_of_payers.append(t)            
    return (list_refined, list_of_payers) 

def print_stock_div(ticker):
    print(f"{ticker}:")
    print(Ticker(ticker).dividends)

    
list_of_tcks = ['MSTR', 'TSLA', 'BRPHF', 'VOYG', 'MARA', 'SQ', 'HUT', 'RIOT', 'BITF', 'CORZ', 'COIN', 'BTGGF', 'HIVE', 'ARBKF', 'NEXOF', '', 'BROOK', 'HKD', 'BTBT', 'HSSHF', 'BBKCF', 'DMGGF', 'CLSK', 'HODL', 'ABT', 'DGGXF', 'NPPTF', 'CBIT', 'MELI', 'OTC', 'BNXAF', 'PHUN', 'BTCS', 'FRMO', 'SATO', 'MILE', 'MOGO', 'NTHOL TI']
print(list_of_tcks)
print(len(list_of_tcks))

leanCompanies = give_me_list_of_no_div_payers(list_of_tcks)[0]    
print(leanCompanies)   
fatCompanies = give_me_list_of_no_div_payers(list_of_tcks)[1]     
print("Following is the detailed info on the dividends of the fat companies:") 
for t in fatCompanies:
    print(f"{t}:")
    print(Ticker(t).dividends)

I noticed that when there is a positive history of paying dividends the type of Ticker(t).dividends is either pandas.core.series.Series. When the firm has never paid its dividend the type of Ticker(t).dividends is either pandas.core.series.Series or a list.

1. Why are there such two types?

2. Is testing for the value of len(Ticker(t).dividends) a reliable way of getting the list of firms that do not pay dividends?

3. Is there another way of obtaining such a list?

Answer 1

1. The cause of the two types is because some of the tickers are not found. If you read the output of your [0] print line, you will see that there is a list for those that return - <ticker>: No data found, symbol may be delisted, and a pd.Series where the ticker is available, but there is no dividend.
2. Yes, using len(Tickers(t).dividends) is sensible, this output is correct for each ticker in your list.
3. There is no need for a condition your elif:, you can use else: instead. As the length of the dividends will either be 0 (to be in list_refined) or not (will be in list_of_payers). So you can clean up the code with the following instead:

#Option 1

def give_me_list_of_no_div_payers(list_of_tcks):
    list_refined = []
    list_of_payers = []
    for t in list_of_tcks:
        if len(Ticker(t).dividends) == 0:
            list_refined.append(t)
        else:
            list_of_payers.append(t)

    return (list_refined, list_of_payers)

#Option 2 - list comprehension

def give_me_list_of_no_div_payers_2(list_of_tcks):
    list_refined = []
    list_of_payers = []
    [list_refined.append(t) \
     if len(Ticker(t).dividends) == 0 \
         else list_of_payers.append(t) \
             for t in list_of_tcks ]
    
    return [list_refined, list_of_payers]

Other than this I don't know!