Dividends are what you receive from a company as a reward for investing in it (i.o. open a BUY position). The dividend is the portion of the larger payout that the investor is entitled to.
Suppose you buy a company's stock or, in our case, open a buy order. Now, you are entitled to a fraction of the company’s net profit, provided that it has profit and chooses to reward its investors.
You will be affected if a company chooses to pay dividends while you have a buy or sell order with this stock by the ex-dividend date.
The ex-dividend date (or ex-date for short) is a stage that companies go through when they pay dividends to their shareholders (in this case - you, if you have an open buy order). The ex-dividend date is important because on this date the holders of the buy orders can receive dividends.
In order to be eligible for it, you should have a buy position open before or on the ex-dividend date. If you close it before this date or open it after, you will not receive the dividend.
Even if you close the buy order after the ex-dividend date, you are still entitled to the next dividend payout – but just the upcoming one.
What should I do to receive dividends?
- Firstly, it’s necessary to keep an eye on our Dividends Calendar;
- Secondly, open the position by taking into account the dividend payout information from the Calendar (i.o. before the ex-dividend date).
In our Calendar, dividends are shown in the stock currency per share.
For example, if you own 100 PepsiCo stocks and the dividend is 1.075, you will receive $107.5 ($1.075 for each stock you own). But you can receive this payment only if you had the stock by the ex-dividend date.
After that, you’ll receive dividends proportional to your stock. They will be automatically credited to your trading account.
Please, kindly pay attention to your sell positions since you could be charged the dividend amount. You can find the amount of dividend in the Dividends Calendar.