Tag Archives: dividends

When Will I See My Dividend Payments in my CIBC Investor’s Edge Account?

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A bit over a month ago, May 28 2013 to be exact, I put in an order to buy some Cineplex shares for our Investor’s Edge account. I thought that I had made the purchase the day before the stock went ex-dividend. The sale settled on May 31 as expected. Then I started waiting for the end of June and the first monthly dividend payment. I wondered exactly when I would see my dividend payment appear in my CIBC brokerage account.

Why Test Using Cineplex?

Cineplex was a good stock for this test because it pays a dividend each month to shareholders on record on a date near the end of the previous month. There are quite a few companies that pay dividends monthly which can make a useful income stream for investors as I described in Using Dividend Paying Stocks to Create Monthly Income.

The fact that Cineplex has gone up over $2 a share since we bought was an unplanned but not unexpected bonus. Monsters U and Despicable Me, too, anyone?!

When was Cineplex Due to Pay?

According to their press release, Cineplex said it would pay “$0.12 per share for the month of May 2013, payable on June 28, 2013, to shareholders of record on May 31, 2013.”

So in theory since our shares settled on May 31, we should have received a dividend payment on June 28, 2013.

With BMO InvestorLine the actual dividend payment usually lands in my cash account one day after it was payable. It shows up in the transaction history back dated to the previous day, as I described in What is in the Transaction History for a BMO InvestorLine Account and What Should I Watch Out for?

Did the Payment Appear in my Transaction History on June 28? 29? 30? Canada Day?

No.

I wasn’t surprised that the dividend payment did not appear in my CIBC brokerage account or in the Investor’s Edge transaction history on Friday June 28.

I wasn’t even particularly surprised that it didn’t show up on Saturday or Sunday. And then Monday was Canada Day.

(Dividend transactions do appear in our InvestorLine accounts on the weekend,  though, back dated to the proper date.)

I gave it one last check very early Tuesday July 2. Still nothing.

That’s when I decided I must have somehow missed the Date of Record. Maybe a settlement date of May 31 did not equal a Record Date of May 31. Although I had thought it did.

When Did I Receive the Dividend?

Fast forward to Monday July 8. Refreshed after a few days in northern south eastern Ontario paddling among the muskrats and loons, I sat back down in front of a computer. Logging in to our CIBC account, I was surprised to find we DID receive the payment for the May Cineplex dividend.

How Does the Dividend Show Up in the CIBC Investor’s Edge Transaction History?

The transaction history reports:

  • In the Date column
    • T July 2: I believe that means transaction date, based on other items.
    • S July 2: Settlement date. Ditto.
  • In the Curr column
    CAD
  • In the Type column
    Dividend
  • In the Description column
    Cash div on 100 shares rec 05/31/13 pay 06/30/13
  • In the Symbol column
    CGX:CDN
  • In the Quantity column
    nothing was reported
  • In the Price column
    nothing was reported
  • In the Amount column
    $12.00

I found the dates a bit confusing.

  • Rec does not mean Received. It means Date of Record, May 31, 2013.
  • Pay, though, is not listed as Friday June 28 per the press release, but as Sunday June 30. I’m not sure why it says that.
  • July 2 is apparently when the money was put into our cash account. I didn’t see it there first thing on the 2, but it may have appeared later that day or before the start of trading on July 3.

Possibly the June 30 date was used simply because it is the last day of the month. The Cineplex dividend is usually payable the last day of the month if that day is a business day. If not, they usually move it up to the last business day.

A Probable Explanation for the Delay in Dividend Payment

I suspect the cause of the delayed dividend payment was confusion. This was the first dividend earned by this stock since we purchased it. I expect that second and subsequent dividend payments will be credited much more quickly to our account.

Testing, Testing 1, 2, 3

I guess I’ll have to keep an eye on the account and see what happens this month.

According to the Cineplex Press Release, the June dividend payable to owners on record on June 28, 2013 is payable on July 31, 2013. Since the 31 is a Wednesday, the dividend could appear on the 31, or on August 1 or later.

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When does Investor’s Edge report your dividends? Does it happen the day of, the day after, or several days after the actual payment date? Please share your experiences with a comment.

My Dividend Just Doubled for CU! Or Did It? Stock Splits and BMO InvestorLine

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I’m currently undergoing yet another stock split in my BMO InvestorLine account. I’m watching closely because I want to make an obscenely huge profit for no effort. (True, I probably won’t: I said I wanted to, not I expected to!) It’s frankly a bit of a mess out there in InvestorLine land this morning. Here’s what I found when my CU stock split.

Massive Dividend Increase Over night!

When I opened the Quotes+ screen for Canadian Utilties, CU, the first thing that greeted me was the awesome news the yield was now over 5%. That was a bit surprising as it was around 2.5% last Friday. It’s almost as if it doubled over the weekend after trading stopped. Strangely, that’s about the same time the stock split. Hmmmmm.

Yes, what I’m looking at is that InvestorLine has updated the price of the stock to the split-adjusted price. But it has not yet updated the Indicated Annual Dividend. So it’s dividing the non-split dividend with the split stock price.

Sadly, there is no increase in dividend. Eventually BMO will correctly halve the indicated dividend and the yield will drop.

I sincerely hope, however, that anyone buying the stock this morning is aware of this error. It might be a big shock to buy a stock at about $38 expecting to get $1.94 per year per share and find you’re only really getting $0.97.

Huge 52-week Minimum and Maximum Gap!

Similarly, the minimum 52-week price has been updated to the lowest post-split price. The maximum 52-week price, though, has not been adjusted for the split. So it looks like the stock has bounced between 31.56 and 75.80 in one year. Not!

Should I Sell Half My Shares Immediately?

This is another place where InvestorLine makes me irritated. According to My Holdings, I still only have my original pre-split number of shares. I could put in a request to sell half of what I should have but I’d be in suspense for a while to see what happened. Would the other half of the split eventually show up credited to my account? It should, as the split was based on a date of record of over a month ago. What would happen to InvestorLine’s calculation of my gain or loss on the shares?

Speaking of which, right now it’s reporting I have a huge loss on my shares! That’s because it is using the non-split-adjusted purchase price as my cost, and the split-adjusted price as my current market value. Silly InvestorLine!

Should I Buy More Shares and Ride the Post Split Surge?

It’s always tempting when a stock emerges still gleaming and fresh from its shell after a split to buy more and try to catch the wave of a sudden increase in value. So I logged in at the start of post-split trading this morning to consider the possibility.

However, in the first half hour of trading, the stock had already surged up 99 cents per share. That’s a 2.7% increase in the price of the shares in less than an hour!

The problem is I missed that wave. Do I think it will continue to climb rapidly? This is a very conservative utility stock. If you take the time to figure out the correct dividend, it’s yielding about 2.5% and that’s shrinking each dollar the shares go up.

Hmmm. How gullible are the buyers? Have they checked out the correct dividend? Are they all trying to make a quick buck off the split? Can I buy and dump for a gain of $1 or more a share within the month?

On the other side, this is a perfectly respectable stock to hold. If I buy and it plummets, I could always wait 10 years before selling. Although a 2-2.5% yield is rather low, CU does increase its dividends fairly regularly. It could improve gradually.

Oh the terrible temptation to play the market rather than invest! I can rationalize this six ways to Sunday if I try.

What Would You Do? Or, Perhaps, What Would Warren Buffet Do?

What about you? Would you buy some CU and try to catch the wave? Would you laugh maniacally and stick like a limpet to your ‘whole market’ index fund ETFs? Please share your opinions with a comment.

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