Hi P123 team!
I am visually displaying quarterly dividends per share on fundamental charts using the formula DivPaidQ/SharesQ.
I cross-checked my results with Nasdaq dividend history database. It works fine with IBM, but for instance with Total (TOT) the numbers are completely off.
Am I doing something wrong or is your database not correct?
Kind regards,
Florian
TOT is kind of a complicated situation.
First, TOT is an ADR. It typically reports its dividends in Euros, as near as I can tell. It doesn’t have an ADR ratio – that is, each ADR share is equivalent to one French share – so at least that isn’t a factor. As near as I can tell the actual value of the dividends is the same in our system and on NASDAQ.
Second, each of its dividends prior to the 6/7/2019 was a choice: You could take it all in cash or you could take it in cash and some more stock. On Portfolio123 we assume in all such cases that you’ll take the cash. It looks to me, based on the numbers that you’re showing, that NASDAQ is reporting a figure less than what we’re showing, which I assume is the cash portion of the optional cash/stock dividend.
Which still brings up the problem of why DivPSQ drops to zero. I think that some of it might be a matter of timing: DivPS is meant to correspond to the fiscal periods, and if one just haaaapens to have two and another just haaaapens to have zero then you’ll get a zero in one of the quarterlies. As it stands, it looks really cumulative, so…more investigation.
By the way, this is a pretty good example of why you should probably be using DivPSTTM, which updates each quarter and isn’t affected by the same potential timing problems.
Thanks Paul for looking into this!
I will use DivPSTTM in addition to evaluate dividends.
As for the specific case of TOT, the dividends reported by Nasdaq are equivalent to the dividends paid in Euros on the French stock market.
Kind regards,
Florian
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