Historical dividends paid

Jim101 · February 10, 2022, 7:36pm

While trying to replicate the CCC dividend payers (Champions, Challengers & Contenders) for REITS, I discovered that screening them for 3 year dividend growth decimated the published list. Checking REITs that did not pass my screen of the list showed some odd dividend data.

For example, EGP was on the published list but did not make it through my screen. Looking at the Div bar charts on the EGP snapshot showed that one quarter of data was missing in the quarterly data. But when I look at the dividend history in the price tab for EGP, the numbers don’t match the graph. There is no missing quarter of data in the dividends listed. The totals for 2018 also do not match the total on the graph (2.64 vs 2.00). Online at other sites the dividend bar charts reflect the dividends listed.

I found similar, but not necessarily identical issues with other REITs on my CCC list. CONE & DLR for example. Cone looks like it has an extra payout recently, but regular dividend payments prior to that. On the CONE bar chart there are no dividends for 2017 and 2018.

I checked the values for the annual dividends in the screen with SHOWVAL. They are the values shown in the bar charts, not the values from the dividends on the price page.

Any workaround you can provide would be very useful since I use DivPS(,) in several strategies.

Jim

marco · February 10, 2022, 8:10pm

DivPS defaults to using #PayDate . I think there’s a problem with that ( not sure why it’s the dafault. #ExDate should be)

Try running this rules in screener with your as-of 2/10/19 and you will see all 4 dividends for 2018

ticker(“egp”)
showvar(@cntEx,DivPS(0, ANN , #AllDiv, #ExDate, TRUE )) // return count = 4
showvar(@cntPay,DivPS(0, ANN , #AllDiv, #paydate, TRUE )) // returns count = 3
showvar(@q0,DivPS(0, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // 0.72
showvar(@q1,DivPS(1, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // 0.72
showvar(@q2,DivPS(2, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // 0.64
showvar(@q3,DivPS(3, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // 0.64

In other words try forcing the parameter “div_dt” to #ExDate

Let us know , thanks

Jim101 · February 11, 2022, 12:02am

Thanks Mario,

I used the info you supplied, ran the screen for 2/10/18 and got the same results except for Qtr 3. In addition, I changed the first 2 items from TRUE to FALSE. This gave me the expected annual dividend for 2018.

Ticker(“EGP”) // Select stock to examine
showvar(@cntEx,DivPS(0, ANN , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE)) // Div = 2.72
showvar(@cntPay,DivPS(0, ANN , #AllDiv, #paydate, FALSE)) // Div = 2.00
showvar(@q0,DivPS(0, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // 0.72
showvar(@q1,DivPS(1, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // 0.72
showvar(@q2,DivPS(2, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // 0.64
showvar(@q3,DivPS(3, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // N/A not, 0.64

I will change my screens to explicitly use ExDate.

But, as you point out, why is the default the paydate? In fact, the dividend bar charts on the Snapshot tab reflect the paydate. I often use those bar charts as a quick visual check for dividend growth. No more.

Are the dividend growth values based on the ExDate or the PayDate?

Thanks for the quick response.

Jim

marco · February 11, 2022, 12:29am

hum , you said you set the as-of to 2/10/18 ? That should be completely different results showing you the dividends for the quarters in 2017. See my screenshot when I set the as-of to 2/10/18

Can you save the screen and let me know which one it is? Either the URL in the browser or screen name will do.

I’ll find out tomorrow what’s going on with #PayDate and what is used on the SnapShot page, the growth rates. Finally there should not be N/As for this stock.

Jim101 · February 11, 2022, 12:40am

Sorry, Marco, made a typo on my reply. I had the date set as 2/10/19, not 2/1018.

marco · February 11, 2022, 12:49am

OK, still , you should not have see the N/A. Can you confirm ? Thx

marco · February 11, 2022, 8:46pm

For EGP the cause of the hole you see in the snapshot is that they switched their ex-dates from around the middle of the last month of each quarter to around the end of month . here is when the switch occurred : ex date went from around middle of month (Jun 19) to end of month (Sep 29):

ex 2018-09-27 pay 2018-10-15 amount 0.72
ex 2018-06-19 pay 2018-06-29 amount 0.64

So this creates a hole if PayDate is used, but not if ExDate is used. I’ll discuss with team why PayDate was chosen as the default. It affects several things like the Snapshot page and growth rates like Div%ChgTTM.

Thanks for reporting this

pdemartino · February 11, 2022, 9:51pm

My best guess as to why it’s like this is conservatism: We only acknowledge the dividend once it’s paid.

A secondary guess is that we reacted to some particular case in the past with this decision. I can’t help but shake the feeling that we decided this for a specific reason, but darned if I can recall it now.

I also suspect that it’s generally immaterial. It’s been this way for a long time, and no one has noticed.

marco · February 12, 2022, 1:25pm

We will have to fix this and use the ex-date. The way it is now, for companies that use ex-dates close to the end of the period, you will never see the last dividend reflected in any of the factors or stock pages. That just seems wrong.

Dividend conservatism may be right in some extreme cases, but not for what we do here, which is rank stocks based on accruals.

Very sorry about this. I do think the impact to strategies will be minimal.

There are 600+ companies that have payment dates that straddle the end of the period and show differences. Here’s how to find them

showvar(@q0_ex,DivPS(0, qtr , #regular, #ExDate, FALSE ))
showvar(@q0_pay,DivPS(0, qtr , #regular, #PayDate, FALSE ))
@q0_pay != @q0_ex

NOTE: DivPSDays may be a much better function to use since it’s not bound to the timing of the filings (and their lateness0

Jim101 · February 12, 2022, 3:52pm

Ran the screen (Check Dividends) again and got the same results. Don’t see any typos, but I have looked at it too often and may be missing something.

Ticker Name Start End Pct @cntEx @cntPay @q0 @q1 @q2 @q3 @q4 @q5 @q6 @q7
EGP EastGroup Properties Inc. 100.49 193.07 92.13 2.72 2.00 0.72 0.72 0.64 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

Ticker(“EGP”) // Select stock to examine. Values in comments based on 2/10/19 screen
showvar(@cntEx,DivPS(0, ANN , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE)) // Year 0 annual Div
showvar(@cntPay,DivPS(0, ANN , #AllDiv, #paydate, FALSE)) // Div = 2.00 when run on 2/10/19
showvar(@q0,DivPS(0, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // 0.72
showvar(@q1,DivPS(1, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // 0.72
showvar(@q2,DivPS(2, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // 0.64
showvar(@q3,DivPS(3, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // N/A not, 0.64
showvar(@q4,DivPS(4, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // N/A
showvar(@q5,DivPS(5, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // N/A
showvar(@q6,DivPS(6, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // N/A
showvar(@q7,DivPS(7, qtr , #AllDiv, #ExDate, FALSE )) // N/A

With regard to ExDate vs PayDate, I am changing all my screens and strategies to force ExDate.

From the standpoint of what fiscal year the dividend refers to, my preference is to assign the quarterly dividend to the correct fiscal year. This suggests that the dividend values listed on the “Prices” tab show up in the corresponding place (Year bar) in the dividend graph on the “Snapshot” tab. Below is the relevant info for EGP to illustrate:

Snapshot	Prices				
Graph	Data	 Q4	Q3	Q2	Q1

2021 3.17 3.27 0.90 0.79 0.79 0.79
2020 3.04 3.04 0.79 0.75 0.75 0.75
2019 2.91 2.91 0.75 0.72 0.72 0.72
2018 2.00 2.64 0.72 0.64 0.64 0.64
2017 2.49 2.43 0.64 0.62 0.62 0.55
2016 2.68 2.19 0.55 0.53 0.53 0.58
5 Yr Total 16.29 16.48

Jim

marco · February 15, 2022, 10:42pm

shoot so sorry. Historical screens only show 5 columns of data , then N/As. This is data provider limitation to prevent screen scraping and downloading entire point in time database. Try turning off first five Shovars and you will see the rest. I have an admin account so I don’t have that limitation.

Jim101 · February 16, 2022, 12:28am

That worked. I was able to see the remaining data.

Currently going through my dividend related screens, portfolios, universes etc to move to ExDate.

Are the dividend growth rates affected by using pay date as well?

Jim

marco · February 16, 2022, 2:05am

Yes affects all dividend factors that involve statements. The parameter div_dt defaults to Pay Date if not specified.

We will change it to default to ExDate.

It does not affect factors that use a time period like DivPS52W and DivPSDays. Those default to ExDate. So very inconsistent. Sorry about that.