I hold SFL shares and was expecting a big fall today as the special dividend went "ex".

Am I missing something?

The reason why there was not a large fall is that you now hold less shares!
Say you had 9000 shares at the end of last week @ 2.41p, they would have been worth 21690. Today you have 8000 shares (8 for 9 consolidation effective today)worth - at time of posting - @ 2.335p ie 18680 - a decline of 3010 but offest by the special div of 9000x26p - 2340 - to be received later this month. So there has been a decline of, in my example, of 670 ie 3.1% from Friday's close......still a large drop!!

If the share price had been quoted today to reflect an unaltered overall value of SFL from Friday's close it should have been: (241p x 9/8)- (26p x 9/8) = 241.875p. If you apply that to my example above....8000 x 241.875p = 19350 plus div of 26p/share (2340) = 21690...ie back to the value of 9000 shares held at the end of last week!!!

Thanks for your very helpful explanation. I had missed the 9/8 bit