of companies that do pay dividends, quarterly is the most co

Posted on: August 18, 2011 at 22:55:11 CT

mmon for almost all NYSE stocks, there is no 'arbitrage' opportunity here in which you buy the stock, collect dividend then turn around and sell-when a stock goes ex-dividend, the stock usually drops by the amount of the dividend the next morning all else being equal. Or for special one-time dividends, i.e. think Microsoft, they might pay a special, $3 dividend per share to shareholders, but when it goes ex-dividend if the stock had been trading at $30/ it would open the next trading day @ roughly $27 (assuming there was no other big news out there)--trust me, all the hedge funds have sophisticated computer programs that would pick up on any such opportunity-hope this helps