Dividends payment dates

fimonkey

Is there an easily available list of all the companies on the UK stock market who pay dividends, what they pay, and when the ex divi date is please?

Its taking me ages to look up the individual companies, and whilst using the ii portfolio builder I can only contribute a small amount per month to shares. Knowing the ex divi date of the comapnies may influence when I buy the ones on my list.

Thanks

JamesU

fimonkey wrote: »

Is there an easily available list of all the companies on the UK stock market who pay dividends, what they pay, and when the ex divi date is please?

Yes there is. The link below is a good source of accurate dividend yields and ex dividend dates e.g. for UK FTSE:

http://www.digitallook.com/cgi-bin/d...&username=&ac=

Just click on the "dividend yield" black title in the opened link to put them into ascending or descending order of dividend yield. And click on individual company, and then scroll down to find ex-dividend dates and amount of dividend that will be paid for the share.

For other UK indices just click UK shares on left then the index you want. Follow same procedure under international for international shares in the geographical sectors covered.

If prompted to register at any stage during searches, registration is free for this type of info.

Note, some sites that specialise in showing just yields are not that accurate and often not up to date up e.g. topyields as discussed in this previous thread (post#16) on dividends:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/41139318#Comment_41139318

JamesU

xrjtg

Here's an old thread asking the same question.

There's not really a lot of point timing your purchases if the hope is to grab the dividends and make more money as a result: the dividends are paid out of money that already belonged to the shareholders, so the price will drop by the value of the dividend on the ex div date in the absence of other factors that would normally affect price.

JamesU

xrjtg wrote: »

There's not really a lot of point timing your purchases if the hope is to grab the dividends and make more money as a result:

FiMonkey did not say that was the objective. He said the dividend dates may influence his decision on what to buy, which sounds pretty reasonable to me. If a share is perceived to be undervalued, for whatever reason, and the prospects regarding dividend payment and dates are also good on top of this, that would certainly influence my decision making.

JamesU

alanq

Timing could affect the amount of tax due.

Selling c u m div for a higher price would mean (potentially) more Capital Gains tax and no Income Tax to pay. Sell ex div would mean less Capital Gains tax but Income Tax to pay (potentially at a higher rate).

Similarly buying ex div will maximise capital growth all else being equal.

xrjtg

JamesU wrote: »

FiMonkey did not say that was the objective. He said the dividend dates may influence his decision on what to buy, which sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Agreed, and I ummed and aahed about whether to add that rider explicitly.

fimonkey

xrjtg wrote: »

Here's an old thread asking the same question.

There's not really a lot of point timing your purchases if the hope is to grab the dividends and make more money as a result: the dividends are paid out of money that already belonged to the shareholders, so the price will drop by the value of the dividend on the ex div date in the absence of other factors that would normally affect price.

Please can you rephrase that into simple language? I've noticed the share price of companies prior to the ex div date rises, then drops immediately after this date. I presumed this was due to traders who want the share only for the divi, so in some cases may only even hold the share for the day!

How does what you're saying fit in with that, or are you saying something completely different?

Also, if I buy £150 worth of shares ( yes I know its a small amount, I am only just learning this 'investment game' so can only afford to use what I'm prepared to loose until I know more - hence buying in small amounts using ii's portfolio builder with £1.50 buying costs) ... back to my point. If I bought £150 the month before ex divi date, surely that's better than buying them a month afterwards? At least I get a dividend sooner rather than later?

deutsch

not really an expert, but just a thought if anyone could just analyse and be critical on my view or what i know:

dividend yield is based past performance
past performance does not equal the same for future
dividend is based on profits
share price is based on market value

can the dividend yield can be falsely interpreted?

for example...

20p/£8.00 = 2.5%
20p/£5.00 = 4%

4% sounds good, but as the share price is a £3 difference less - we can't assume that the company is doing well right if the lower share price? and there is no direct relationship between a higher dividend and a higher share price?

i'm confusing myself abit. not an investor, but would like to become one.

Reaper

You are roughly right, apart from the bit about the share price.

The actual price of the shares tells you nothing about how well the company is doing. The higher priced share might be falling like a stone and the lower priced one shooting up. Or the lower priced one might only be low because the company recently did a share split to bring it down (they do that sometimes if the share price gets too high as they think it puts people off).

So based purely on your figures the one paying 4% is better. However what matters more than past performance is predicted future performance, and that is the tricky bit. That is why analysts are paid a lot of money to research companies and sell that info to investors so they can judge whether it is a good buy or not.

p00hsticks

fimonkey wrote: »

If I bought £150 the month before ex divi date, surely that's better than buying them a month afterwards? At least I get a dividend sooner rather than later?

But a dividend is effectively converting some of your share value straight back into cash. Given that you have to pay a dealing cost each time you buy shares, you'll get more shares for you dealing cost by buying immediately after a dividend payout.

So for example, suppose you have a company whose shares initially cost £1, but drop to 90p immediately after paying a 10p dividend.

If you spend your £150 immediately before the dividend is paid, you end up with 150 shares for your £1.50 dealing cost, and get £15 cash back almost straight away when the dividend is paid.

Buy after the dividend is paid and you'll get 166 shares for your £150. So more shares for the same dealing cost.

xrjtg

fimonkey wrote: »

Please can you rephrase that into simple language? I've noticed the share price of companies prior to the ex div date rises, then drops immediately after this date. I presumed this was due to traders who want the share only for the divi, so in some cases may only even hold the share for the day!

How does what you're saying fit in with that, or are you saying something completely different?

A public company exists to manage all the money that they raised during their initial share sale. Whenever it has cash it has two options: it can invest money into the business, for example by hiring more staff or buying new machinery, in the hope of bringing in more money in the future; or it might decide that the money can't be usefully invested in the business, in which case it will be returned to shareholders in the form of a dividend. In either case the money has always belonged to the shareholders, so the total value of shares held and dividends paid would remain constant for any business existing in a vacuum, unaffected by external factors.

I think that's what you understood by my original post, and if there is, as you suggest, a general trend for prices to rise in the run up to an ex div date, then I can't explain it. Such a predictable movement in prices should be removed from the system by traders.