I snuck this into another post but it really deserves its own discussion. If a stock offers a stock dividend, as in dividend reinvestment, what are the terms of the dividend? About half the time I have seen stock dividends with the record date set several weeks before the pay date, and the ex-dividend date is after the pay date. From the research I have done I take this to mean that you must be on record with the company by the record date, and hold the stock through the pay date and the ex-dividend date in order to receive the additional shares. Now I have also read that if you sell your stock between the record date and ex-dividend date you donât get the dividend. Furthermore, if you hold the stock long enough to get the additional shares but sell it before the ex-dividend date (which in this case is the last date in the series) you will receive a âdue billâ from your brokerage for the additional shares. If this is really the case, what would happen if everyone who owned the stock on the record date, sold their stock before the pay date? Would this mean that the company is now exempt from paying anyone a dividend because nobody held the stock through the holding period? If this is not the case, who gets the dividend, like in the case of receiving the payment but selling prior to ex day you get a âdue billâ and have to forfeit your additional shares, so who gets those shares? Someone gets the dividend right? And if this is true, whatâs the point of the record date if you can buy the stock before the ex date and still get the shares? I apologize for the barrage of questions but Iâm truly confused and no investor relations party or broker has been able to give me the true picture.
Can you provide an example where the ex-date is not 2 days before the record date (i.e. settlement of ex-date trades is the day after the record date)?
Silver Falls Bank Silverton (SVFL) 5% stock dividend Record Date - 2/28/05 Pay Date - 3/28/05 X Date - 4/22/05 There are also a few stocks that go up on ex-day like NREB X Date - 4/28/05 4/27/05 close - 24.9 4/28/05 open - 26.50 close - 26.00 dividend: 5% stk this one seemed to go up by the amount of the dividend instead of down.
For the first one, I think the ex-date was a typo, and was supposed to be 2005-02-24. Their previous 5% stock dividends were "normal" in this regard. Of course, it's anyone's guess, since they don't seem to file with the SEC, or publish their news anywhere "normal" (including their own web site). With the second one, much like the first, it barely trades. It's hard to read anything from the price action on a given day (i.e. it may have gone up in spite of being ex-dist).