When a dividend is declared, they give an ex-dividend date. That is, everyone who owns the stock on that date will get the dividend.
If the date is a trading day, is it who owns the stock at the beginning of the day or the end?
Also, anyone know a good site to find out what stocks have dividends and when they go ex-dividend?
Bump. Maybe now that the stock market is closed forthe day, one of the brokers might have a little time to answer this…
Pretty good breakdown at Investopedia.
There may be some confusion regarding record date and ex-date. The dividend will be payable to all holders of record on record date (beginning of the day). Ex-date in my experience refers to the day two days before the record date, which is the day upon which a normal (three-day) trade does not entitle a buyer to the dividend. In other words, you have to buy the stock so that the three day settlement period closes on or before the record date.
Hope this is helpful.
As for sites, well, there’s Ex-dividend.com, but I don’t know how reliable it is.