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do stock prices really go down by the amount of the dividend?
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ex-dividend price behavior of common stocks would be a study from the federal reserve bank of minneapolis and university of minnesota if you want a source for some data. abstract this study examines common stock prices around ex-dividend dates. such   price data usually contain a mixture of observations - some with and   some without arbitrageurs and/or dividend capturers active. our theory   predicts such mixing will result in a nonlinear relation between   percentage price drop and dividend yield - not the commonly assumed   linear relation. this prediction and another important prediction of   theory are supported empirically. in a variety of tests, marginal   price drop is not significantly different from the dividend amount.   thus, over the last several decades, one-for-one marginal price drop   have been an excellent (average) rule of thumb.
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