2015-03-23 BOBE(US0967611015) Payment in Lieu of Dividend (Ordinary Dividend) -279.00 2015-08-14 KALU(US4830077040) Payment in Lieu of Dividend (Ordinary Dividend) -80.00 2015-08-17 CRR(US1407811058) Cash Dividend 0.10000000 USD per Share (Ordinary Dividend) -26.30 The first two (BOBE and KALU) represent "Payment in Lieu of Dividend." I have borrowed shares and thus owe dividend to whomever I borrowed the shares from. However, the last one (CRR) is a negative cash dividend of USD -26.30. How does that happen?
Maybe the broker has just omitted "Payment in Lieu of" because of lack of space. I guess that must be the answer. I can see I was short the shares in question. Case closed.
It's what happens when you were short them on the ex date, and it gets billed to you in the pay date. There are rare situations that are equivalent to a negative dividend (i.e. You lose money for being long on a particular day), but they are super obscure.