Bought 200 shares two days before the ex-dividend date and held through the record date, and the dividend never landed. Support told me to check the record date, which I did, and I still do not follow. I am clearly misunderstanding how these dates line up. Can someone walk through what actually determines who gets paid?
One thing that trips people up on the way to this question: the share price typically drops by roughly the dividend amount on the ex-date. Buying just before the ex-date to capture a payment gains you nothing — you pay for the dividend in the price and then owe tax on it. Not what you asked, but it is where this question usually leads next.
The number of people who discover this after building a whole strategy around it is remarkable.
Worth filing away for later: a large special dividend sometimes uses a different rule where the ex-date falls after the record date rather than before it. It is rare, it is announced in the notice if you read it, and it catches absolutely everybody the first time.
Check whether the account is set to reinvest. Some platforms show a reinvested dividend only as an extra fractional share and never as a cash line, so it looks exactly like nothing was paid.
Not the case here but I can see how that would look identical.
The record date is what matters, the ex-date is just informational.
Other way around from the buyer's side. The ex-date is derived from the record date and the settlement cycle, and it is the one that decides whether your purchase entitles you to the payment.
@vesting_cliff · last mo. · 3 replies
The ex-dividend date decides it and nothing else does. If you own the shares at the open on the ex-date you get paid; if you buy on the ex-date or later, the seller gets it. The record date exists for the company's registrar and settlement plumbing, not for you. So buying two days before the ex-date should have meant you got it, which points at one of three things: you are looking at a different quarter's ex-date than the one your purchase falls before, the position settled differently than you assume, or the payment is being routed somewhere you have not looked. Check the trade date on the confirmation rather than the settlement date, and compare it to the ex-date on the company's own investor relations page rather than a data aggregator — aggregators get these wrong surprisingly often.
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@coast_fi_casey · last mo.
The aggregator had the ex-date a week off from the company page. That was it.
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@vesting_cliff · last mo.
Very common. I only trust the issuer page or the exchange notice now.
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