Item 5. Market for the Registrants' Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

(a) Market Information and (c) Dividends

Eversource. Our common shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The ticker symbol is "ES." The high and low sales prices of our common shares and the dividends declared, for the past two years, by quarter, are shown below.

Information with respect to dividend restrictions for us, CL&P, NSTAR Electric and PSNH is contained in Item 8, Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, in the Combined Notes to Financial Statements, within this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

There is no established public trading market for the common stock of CL&P, NSTAR Electric and PSNH. All of the common stock of CL&P, NSTAR Electric and PSNH is held solely by Eversource.

Common stock dividends approved and paid to Eversource during the year were as follows:

(1) The 2017 amount does not include $150.0 million of dividends declared but not paid as of December 31, 2017.

(b) Holders

As of January 31, 2018, there were 37,428 registered common shareholders of our company on record. As of the same date, there were a total of 316,885,808 shares issued.

(d) Securities Authorized for Issuance Under Equity Compensation Plans

For information regarding securities authorized for issuance under equity compensation plans, see Item 12, Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters, included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

(e) Performance Graph

The performance graph below illustrates a five-year comparison of cumulative total returns based on an initial investment of $100 in 2012 in Eversource Energy common stock, as compared with the S&P 500 Stock Index and the EEI Index for the period 2012 through 2017, assuming all dividends are reinvested.

Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer and Affiliated Purchasers

The following table discloses purchases of our common shares made by us or on our behalf for the periods shown below. The common shares purchased consist of open market purchases made by the Company or an independent agent. These share transactions related to shares awarded under the Company's Incentive Plan and Dividend Reinvestment Plan and matching contributions under the Eversource 401k Plan.