Keep this in mind however, that selling now means you sell away the cash dividend rights.
That's not acurate: Technically, there is *no* (known) cash divvy; if one is published (on the Daily List), any trader can buy before the ex-date and have rights to the divvy, just as with this stock action. To be fair, though, sometimes r/s actions are published so late in the day that it's tough to get out in time to avoid the r/s.
So it's possible the same thing could happen with a cash divvy.