Spy X - Div

Lightningsmurf · Mar 19, 2003

Before I place orders in any stock I take a moment to check when the nearest X-Div day as a factor for consideration. I'm thinking about trading SPY on Wed. but noticed that the X-Div date is on the 21st. Could someone confirm the amount of the payout? I went to "company boardroom" and it says that the payout is 0. I just want to make sure before I make any moves.

Thanks in advance

tmb · Mar 19, 2003

There will in all likelihood be a distribution. It should be on the order of .35. Friday's opening price will be down by about that much from Thursday's close with no change in the underlying SPX. Some of the historical distribution data for SPY can be found by going to

http://www.amex.com/?href=http://www.amex.com/etf/prodInf/EtPiPerf.jsp?Product_Symbol=SPY

and clicking on Distributions.

tmb · Mar 19, 2003

An issue that I have repeatedly mulled over is how to best account for this "discontinuous" change in the value of SPY technically. For example, if SPY now gaps below an important low that held the prior day, it is not necessarily a break of support. Also, things such as Fibonacci retracements and pivot calculations are "thrown off." I imagine most software considers the gap to be a valid price change, as other alternatives make even less sense.

My tenative conclusions are :
(1) This is another reason to trade the SPX futures rather than the SPY ETF.
(2) Shortly after the distribution occurs, I should base trades on the behavior of the SPX futures (if I have access to real-time data) or the SPX cash otherwise. In a few days to a week, this effect will diminish as long as I am referring only to short-term swing highs and lows.

I did a search for threads on this subject but didn't come up with what I was looking for.

dojibear · Mar 19, 2003

Quote from Lightningsmurf:

. Could someone confirm the amount of the payout? I went to "company boardroom" and it says that the payout is 0. I just want to make sure before I make any moves.

Thanks in advance

According to Yahoo Finance, the dividend per share is 1.74$
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=spy&d=c

Lightningsmurf · Mar 19, 2003

Presumably the figure $1.74 is an annual figure, right? Also, how could Yahoo post this quarter's dividend if the Amex hasn't posted it yet??
Thanks for taking a moment to look it up. All assistance appreciated.

dojibear · Mar 20, 2003

Quote from Lightningsmurf:

Presumably the figure $1.74 is an annual figure, right? Also, how could Yahoo post this quarter's dividend if the Amex hasn't posted it yet??
Thanks for taking a moment to look it up. All assistance appreciated.

I presume it was the one given out last January, as you see the X-div posted is Dec 20.
Also, you're right, the Div/shr posted is the annual dividend.
( I am used to stock dividends, I am not very familiar with the SPY and other ETFs' dividends)

Cheers!

SethArb · Mar 24, 2003

should be trading at today after the ex div date ?

I know it should be moving in line with the sp500 futures

but there might be an adjustment to its price vis a vis friday

basis that was the ex div date ??

tmb · Mar 24, 2003

The ex-dividend date for SPY is the same as the futures expiration date for ES. So Friday was the ex-dividend date, the first date that the security started trading without the dividend.

For the record, the dividend was .354; see

http://www.amex.com/?href=http://www.amex.com/etf/prodInf/EtPiPerf.jsp?Product_Symbol=SPY

and click on Distributions.

SethArb · Mar 24, 2003

so SPY should trade with the approx 35 cent added today

based on fridays close and marked to market based on the futures?

tmb · Mar 24, 2003

I believe SPY would have opened down .35 on Friday compared to Thursday's close, if nothing else had changed except that it had gone ex-dividend on that day. So the adjustment to SPY's price has already been made.