Dividends
The dividends page is the record of what a company has actually paid its shareholders, which is what you need to judge a share as an income investment.
For many private investors the dividend matters as much as the share price. A dividend is the cash a company pays out to its shareholders, usually twice a year in the UK, and the yield, the annual dividend divided by the share price, is the income return on the money you put in. Whether that income is reliable can only be judged from history: has the company paid steadily, grown the payment, cut it, or skipped it? This page lists each payment the company has made, with its amount and dates, so you can see the pattern.
The dates matter as well as the amounts. The ex-dividend date is the cut-off: if you buy on or after that day you do not receive the coming payment, and the price typically drops by roughly the dividend on that morning. The payment date is when the cash arrives. This is the company's history; it is not a forecast of the next dividend, and it is not a record of what you actually received. Cash that arrived in one of your accounts is recorded in that account's cash book.
Questions
What is the ex-dividend date?
The cut-off for the next payment. If you buy on or after that date you do not receive it, and the share price usually drops by roughly the dividend that morning.
Related pages
| Quote | The quote is the current price, and yield is the dividend measured against it. The dividend history is what tells you whether that yield figure can be trusted. |
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| Cash book | The cash book is where a dividend you actually received is recorded as cash in your account. This page is the company's payment history, whether or not you owned the shares. |