A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board

[Bernie Goldberg]

Hi,
You wrote:Stocks with dividends then show lower prices before the dividend.
This has nothing to do with Yahoo. When a company goes Ex-Dividend, which is the day the dividend is declared not paid, the price per share is reduced by the value of the dividend. This takes place anywheres from 4 to 6 or 8 weeks before the dividend is paid.
This is not a completely simple calculation and indeed has very little relevance.
Let's say under normal conditions the stock price would have gone up 83 cents on the same day a 17 cent dividend is declared.
The 83 cent increase is reduced to a 66 cent increase. This happens automatically in the marketplace. The price at the end of the day is quite simply the price of the stock. The prices as they appear in MSN are the prices that occurred at the end of the day.
Bernie