when calculating tsr an investor can only consider the dividends they actually received or were eligible to receive for example they may be in possession of the stock on the day the dividend is payable yet they receive the dividend only if they owned the stock on or before the ex dividend date therefore an investor needs to know the stock s ex dividend date rather than the dividend payment date when calculating tsr 
dividends which are per share distributions of some of a company s earnings to certain classes of its stockholders can include stock buyback programs one time payments and regular quarterly or semi annual cash payouts tsr is most useful when measured over time as it shows the long term value of an investment the most accurate metric for gauging success for most individual investors examples of total shareholder return tsr total shareholder return is calculated as the overall appreciation in the stock s price per share plus any dividends paid by the company during a particular measured interval this sum is then divided by the initial purchase price of the stock to arrive at the tsr as a mathematical equation it would be tsr current price purchase price dividends purchase price begin aligned text tsr frac text current price text purchase price text dividends text purchase price end aligned tsr purchase price current price purchase price dividends as an example let s assume that an investor bought 100 shares of a company s stock at 20 per share for a total investment of 2 000 the stock which they still own is now trading at 24 per share since the investor bought the stock two years ago the company has paid out a total of 4 50 in dividends per share 