A dividend is the distribution of reward from a portion of the company’s earnings and is paid to a class of its

shareholders. Dividends are decided and managed by the company’s board of directors, though they must be
approved by the shareholders through their voting rights. Dividend can be issued as cash payment, as shares of
stock, or other property, though cash dividends are the most common. Along with companies, various mutual
funds and exchange traded funds also pay dividends.

Basics of a dividend

A dividend is a token reward paid to the shareholders for their investment in a company’s equity, and it usually
originates from the company’s net profits. While the major portion of the profits is kept within the company as
retained earnings, which represent the money to used for the company’s ongoing and future business activities,
the remainder can be allocated to the shareholders as a dividend. However, at times, companies may still make
dividend payments even when they don’t make suitable profits. They may do so to maintain their established
track record of making regular dividend payments.

The board of directors can choose to issue dividends over various time frames and with different payout rates.
Dividends can be paid at a scheduled frequency, like monthly, quarterly or annually.

Key Takeaways

 Dividends are payments made by publicly-listed companies or funds as a reward to investors for
putting their money into the venture. They can be paid as cash or in the form of stock.
 Announcements of dividend payouts are generally accompanied by a proportional increase or decrease
in a company’s stock price.
 Investors can use models, such as the dividend discount model or Gordon growth model, to find
dividend-paying instruments.

Important Dividend Dates

Dividend payment procedure follows a chronological order of events and the associated dates are important to
determine the shareholders who qualify for receiving the dividend payment.

 Announcement Date: Dividends are announced by company management on the announcement date,
and must be approved by the shareholders before they can be paid.
 Ex-dividend Date: The date on which the dividend eligibility expires is called the ex-dividend date or
simply the ex-date. For instance, if a stock has an ex-date of Monday, May 5, then shareholder who buy
 the stock on or after that day NOT qualify to get the dividend as they are buying it on or after the
dividend expiry date. Shareholders who own the stock one business day prior to the ex-date that is on
Friday, May 2, or earlier will receive the dividend.
 Record Date: The record date is the cut-off date, established by the company in order to determine
which shareholders are eligible to receive a dividend or distribution.
 Payment Date: The company issues the payment of the dividend on the payment date, which is when
the money gets credited to investors’ accounts.

Impact of Dividends on Share Price

Since dividends are irreversible, their payments lead to money going out of the company’s books and accounts
of the business forever. Therefore, dividend payments impact share price – it rises on the announcement
approximately by the amount of dividend declared and declines by a similar amount at the opening session of
the ex-date. Say a company is trading at$70 per share and it declares a $2 dividend on the announcement date.
As soon as the news becomes public, the share price will shoot up by around $2 and hit $72. Say the stock
trades at $73 one business day prior to the ex-date. On the ex-date, it will come down by a similar $2 and will
start at $71 at the start of the trading session on the ex-date, because anyone buying on the ex-date will not
receive the dividend.

Why Companies Pay Dividends

Companies pay dividends for a variety of reasons, those reasons can have different implications and
interpretations for investors.

Dividends are expected by the shareholders as a reward for their trust in a company and the company
management aims to honor this sentiment by delivering a robust track record of dividend payments. Dividend
payments reflect positively on a company and help maintain investors’ trust. Dividends are also preferred by
shareholders as they are treated as tax-free income for shareholders in many jurisdictions, while capital gains
realized through the sale of a share whose price has increased is taxable. Traders who look for short-term gains
may also prefer getting dividend payments that offer instant tax-free gains.

A high-value dividend declaration can indicate that the company is doing well and has generated good profits.
But it can also indicate that the company does not have suitable projects to generate better returns. Therefore, it
is utilizing its cash to pay shareholders instead of reinvesting it into growth.
If a company has a long history of past dividend payments, reducing or eliminating the dividend amount may
signal to investors that the company could be in trouble. The announcement of a 50% decrease in dividends
from General Electric Co. (GE), one of the biggest American industrial companies, was accompanied by a
decline of more than seven percent in GE’s stock price on November 13, 2017.

A reduction in dividend amount or a decision against making any dividend payment may not necessarily
translate into bad news about a company. It may be possible that the company's management has better plans
for investing the money, given its financials and operations. For example, a company's management may
choose to invest in a high return project that has the potential to magnify returns for shareholders in the long
run as compared to the petty gains they will realize through dividend payments.

A Note About Fund Dividends

Dividends paid by funds are different from dividends paid by companies. Funds for company dividends usually
come from profits that are generated from the company's business operations. Funds work on the principle of
net asset value. which reflects the valuation of their holdings or the price of the asset a fund may be tracking.
Since funds don’t have any intrinsic profits, they pay dividends that are sourced from their NAV.

Due to the NAV-based working of funds, regular and high-frequency dividend payments should not be
misunderstood as a stellar performance by the fund. Say a bond investing fund may pay monthly dividends as
it receives money in the form of monthly interest on its interest-bearing holdings. It is merely transferring the
interest income fully or partially to the fund investors. A stock investing fund may also pay dividends, which
may come from the dividend it receives from the stocks held in its portfolio, or by selling a certain quantity of
stocks. Essentially. the investors receiving the dividend from the fund are reducing their holding value, which
gets reflected in the reduced NAV on the ex-date.

Are Dividends Irrelevant?

Economists Merton Miller and Franco Modigliani argued that a company's dividend policy is irrelevant and it
has no effect on the price of a firm's stock or its cost of capital. Theoretically, a shareholder may remain
indifferent to a company's dividend policy. In the case of high dividend payments, they can use the cash
received to buy more shares. In the case of low payments, they can sell some shares to get the necessary cash
they need. In either case, the combination of the value of an investment in the company and the cash they hold
will remain the same. Miller and Modigliani thus conclude that dividends are irrelevant, and investors
shouldn't care about the firm's dividend policy since they can create their own synthetically.

However, in reality, dividends allow money to be made available to shareholders, which gives them the liberty
to derive more utility out of it. They can invest in another financial security and reap higher returns, or spend
on leisure and other utilities. Additionally, costs like taxes, brokerages, and indivisible shares make dividends a
considerable utility in the real world.

Dividends can help to offset costs from your broker and your taxes. This can make dividend investments even
more attractive. Of course, to get invested in dividend earning assets, one would need a stockbroker.

Buying Dividend-Paying Investments

Investors seeking dividend investments have a number of options including stocks, mutual funds, ETFs and
more. The dividend discount model or the Gordon growth model can be helpful in choosing stock investments.
These techniques rely on anticipated future dividend streams to value shares.

To compare multiple stocks based on their dividend payment performance, investors can use the dividend yield
factor which measures the dividend in terms of percent of the current market price of the company's share. The
dividend rate can also be quoted in terms of the dollar amount each share receives. In addition to dividend
yield, another important performance measure to assess the returns generated from a particular investment is
the total return factor which accounts for interest, dividends, and increases in share price, among other capital
gains.

Tax is another important consideration when investing for dividend gains, Investors in high tax brackets are
observed to prefer dividend-paying stocks if the jurisdiction allows zero- or comparatively lower tax on
dividends than the normal rates, For example, the U.S. and Canada have a lower tax on dividend income for
shareholders, while dividend gains are tax-exempt in India.