Accounting: What the Numbers Mean 9th Edition by Wayne W McManus, Daniel F Viele, David H Marshall

Exercise 59

Ex-dividend date—market price effect Find a list of common stock ex- dividend date data. (You can go, via Google, to stocks—wsj.com. Select the reference which is labeled Market Data Center; then select the stocks and trading statistics tab; then select the Dividends section. Scroll down until you see the Dividend Declarations Table, which includes the relevant ex-dividend dates. Select several stocks, preferably of large and well-known companies.) Go to a stock listing on the ex-dividend date and determine what happened to the market price of a share of stock on that date. Does this price action make sense? Explain your answer.