Dod101 wrote:... Personally I use the actual dividend received/the period end value, and the usual period end I use is the calendar year. ...
I realise that in this particular "9.1%" case you used a yield quoted in a newspaper, not one you calculated yourself, so what I'm about to say isn't directly relevant here... Yields calculated using any price that is significantly different from the current one really ought to have a "NOT TO BE USED FOR SHARE BUYING/SELLING DECISIONS" financial health warning (*) on them when posted on this board, because there's quite a good chance that anyone taking note of yield figures posted to this board is contemplating buying or selling and the price they'll get is the current one when they actually do so - much as one might sometimes wish the price at the end of the previous year was still available!
Share prices can of course change a great deal in a very short period - just seconds in extreme cases. So there's always the risk that the share's yield has changed significantly since one last looked at it - but it's small if the gap between the yield calculation's date and the date one trades is a matter or hours or a few days, much larger when it's months. It can be guarded against by knowing the price used to calculate the yield and making certain the price one trades at is as expected when one trades - either by having that price in mind when getting the "valid for 15 seconds" quote and letting it expire if the price quoted is markedly different, or by setting a limit one is reasonably certain will be met (but might not be if the price moves markedly against one) if one doesn't want to use the "quote valid for 15 seconds" system for some reason (I think the only reason for that that I've encountered with HYPs is that occasionally that system refuses to quote for even quite small numbers of shares - only very occasionally for largecaps, but I have known it happen).
That is of course be more difficult (how much varying from just a bit to so much that it becomes impossible, depending on the source) when one uses a yield obtained from a 3rd-party source than when using a yield one has calculated oneself - this is one of the reasons I only use 3rd-party-sourced yields for initial filtering, not for my final "due diligence" on a share I'm seriously contemplating buying. Not the only such reason, though: 3rd-party sources are more liable to make mistakes such as not currency-translating a dividend declared in euros or dollars, or to fail to make adjustments needed to avoid misleading answers, such as for unusually short or long 'financial years' when a company changes its year end.
Edit: Just to be clear, I'm
not saying exactly what the yield calculation should be, just that it should divide by the current share price. Variations such as making the value that's divided by the price (**) be the historical dividend, the rolling historical dividend, the forecast dividend, etc, are more of a matter of taste.
(*) Not meant entirely seriously! But it's a good idea to make what one is doing
clear if one does find a need to post a yield calculated using an old price on this board.
(**) Which is actually called the "dividend" in mathematical terminology - a source of confusion I'll avoid!
Gengulphus