Stocks Going Ex Dividend the Fourth Week of March 2010
Here is our latest update on the stock trading technique called 'Buying Dividends'. This is the process of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend. This technique generally works only in bull markets. In flat or choppy markets, your have to be extremely careful.
In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can't sell the stock until after the ex date. The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks. WallStreetNewsNetwork.com has compiled a free downloadable and sortable Excel list of the stocks going ex dividend during the next week or two. The list contains many dividend paying companies, all with market caps over $500 million, and yields over 3%. Here are a few examples showing the stock symbol, the ex-dividend date and the yield.
Piedmont Natural Gas Company, Inc. (PNY) ex div date: $2.0B market cap: 3/23/10 yield: 4.1%
Xcel Energy Inc. (XEL) ex div date: $9.6B market cap: 3/23/10 yield: 4.7%
Portland General Electric Company (POR) ex div date: $1.4B market cap: 3/23/10 yield: 5.3%
Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) ex div date: $94.3B market cap: 3/23/10 yield: 4.6%
The additional ex-dividend stocks can be found at wsnn.com. (If you have been to the website before, and the latest link doesn't show up, you may have to empty your cache.) If you like dividend stocks, you should check out the high yield utility stocks and the Monthly Dividend Stocks at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com or WSNN.com.
Dividend definitions:
Declaration date: the day that the company declares that there is going to be an upcoming dividend.
Ex-dividend date: the day on which if you buy the stock, you would not be entitled to that particular dividend; or the first day on which a shareholder can sell the shares and still be entitled to the dividend.
Record date: the day when you must be on the company's books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is normally set for stocks two business days before the record date.
Payment date: the day on which the dividend payment is actually made, which can be as long at two months after the ex date.
Don't forget to reconfirm the ex-dividend date with the company before implementing this technique.
Author does not own any of the above.
The preceding article is from one of our external contributors. It does not represent the opinion of Benzinga and has not been edited.
