what is the ex dividend date 
the ex dividend date is one of four stages that companies go through when they pay dividends to their shareholders the ex dividend date determines whether the buyer of a stock will be entitled to receive its upcoming dividend the ex dividend date is typically one day before the record date if an investor purchases stock on the ex dividend date or after they will not be paid the next dividend payment understanding the ex dividend datea dividend is typically a cash payment that a company pays to its shareholders as a reward for investing in its stock or equity shares as companies generate a profit they usually accumulate or save those profits in an account called retained earnings some companies reinvest those retained earnings back into the company while others may take a portion of retained earnings and pay it back to shareholders through dividends depending on your broker s trading platform you may see an xd footnote or suffix added to the stock s ticker symbol to indicate it is trading ex dividend to understand the ex dividend date we need to understand the stages companies go through when they pay dividends to their shareholders below are the four key dates during the process of issuing a dividend the first of these stages is the declaration date this is the date on which the company announces that it will be issuing a dividend in the future the second stage is the record date which is when the company examines its current list of shareholders to determine who will receive dividends only those who are registered as shareholders in the company s books as of the record date will be entitled to receive dividends the third stage is the ex dividend date which is the date that determines which of these shareholders will be entitled to receive the dividend typically the ex dividend date is set one business day before the record date 1shareholders who bought the stock on the ex dividend date or after will not receive a dividend however shareholders who owned their shares at least one full business day before the ex dividend date will be entitled to receive a dividend the fourth and final stage is the payable date also known as the payment date the payable date is when the dividend is actually paid to eligible shareholders ex dividend date and the stock pricemany investors want to buy their shares before the ex dividend date to ensure that they are eligible to receive the upcoming dividend however if you find yourself buying shares and realizing that you missed the ex dividend date you may not have missed out as much as you thought this is because share prices usually drop by the amount of the dividend on the ex dividend date this makes sense because the company s assets will soon be declining by the amount of the dividend 1let s say a company announces a dividend equivalent to 2 of its stock price its stock may decline by 2 on the ex dividend date therefore if you bought the shares on or shortly after the ex dividend date you may have obtained a discount of about 2 relative to the price you would have paid shortly before the ex dividend date in this way you may not have been any worse off than the investors who purchased the stock before the ex dividend date and received the dividend because stocks usually decline in price on the ex dividend date investors who missed buying the stock before the ex dividend date may be able to get the stock at a discount equal to the dividend on or after the ex dividend date example of an ex dividend dateto illustrate this process consider a company that declares an upcoming dividend on tuesday july 30 if the record date is thursday aug 8 the ex dividend date would be wednesday aug 7 meaning anyone who bought the stock on aug 7 or later would not receive a dividend conversely shareholders who bought their shares on tuesday aug 6 or earlier would be entitled to receive a dividend since it s one business day before the ex dividend date in our example the payable date is sept 6 the payable date can vary depending on the preferences of the company but will always be the last of the four dates the table below highlights what the key dividend dates might be in our example 