Hi all,

Wondering if someone could help me with how dividends work please... Say, if I buy some shares tomorrow (Tues) for a company going ex div on Wednesday, would I get dividend payments, if I sell first thing on Wednesday morning would I still be entitled?

Thanks in advance.

Entitlement to dividend is different to being on the register. Entitlement is based on the ex-dividend date. Being on the shareholder register on the record date means that the dividend will come from the registrars. If you are entitled to the dividend through having held overnight on the Tuesday but are for whatever reason not on the shareholder register then the dividend will be paid to you by your broker and reclaimed by them from the market. This is sometimes necessary for small cap shares held via certificates, since the register can be out of date. This is the situation I was referring to earlier where the broker may need chasing.

All responses have been very helpful, much appreciated, thanks

fawner, if you have bought on a Tue and sold on the Wed you will get the div as per piston broke above but also remember on that Wed the company's value is less as the Div has been paid so the share price will reflect this automatically first thing on Wed. i.e You buy in @ 400 p/s on Tue and on Wed depending on the amount of Div given out the share price will automatically drop e.g 3800 p/s. What I'm trying to say is that you might have to wait a while to recoup your investment as Div alone might not make you profit.