stock prices do not account for ex dividendClosed
QW2015 H&B I have noticed for a long time that Quicken updates to a stock price do not account for a stock going EX DIV. For example, today NLY went EX Div paying $.30. Every other site shows NLY up $.11 today but Quicken is showing it down $.19. I realize that once the dividend is paid, the "loss" will be reflected as a gain in Quicken's numbers but for the 3-4 weeks until the paid date it reflects in Quicken as a loss. Isn't there a way for Intuit to remedy this problem?
Comments Closed
Sort by:
1 - 1 of
11
This post has been closed.
So on 3/28 NLY closes at $11.31/share. On 3/29, it closes at $11.12. Yesterday's seller demanded $11.31 for a share. Today's seller was willing to take less for the share because he knew he had $0.30 coming to him at the end of April. Today's seller is valuing the complete holding at $11.42/share, noting that he is getting the $0.30 dividend later, he is letting the share go for $0.30 less than that value - the $11.12 value.
But all that Quicken knows, the only available info to the program are those $11.31 and $11.12 closing prices on consecutive days. That's where the program is determining the $0.19 drop in value. Fundamentally, the program does not have fields available for actual div dates and pending div values (there is an ex-div date among the downloaded data). While I might be able to conjure up a method for the user to create this data (a sort of accounts receivable method), I can't see where such efforts would be sufficiently rewarded.
Quicken, Inc. (Intuit is no longer involved) could reprogram the package, but to me that sounds like a pretty big undertaking for limited gain. Tomorrow's daily change or up/down figure will be correct. Other longer term measures will be off until the 4/28 div is recorded as received.
HTH