Ex-Dividend Date

Ex-dividend date - An ex-dividend date is the first day of the ex-dividend period (between the time the dividend was announced and payout). Creating an ex-dividend date in this way will facilitate all unfinished transaction prior to the record date, which is the date that an investor must own shares in order to receive a dividend. If the pending transactions have not been completed by the ex-dividend date, the stock exchange will reduce the price of the stock by the amount that would have been the dividend. The investor has to absorb the decrease in value because he or she did not own the stock in time. Neither the buyer nor the seller is entitled to have the dividend. An ex-dividend is also called a reinvestment date.