The Lemon Fool

DavidM13 wrote:The historic dividends were fine just their forecast for this year was awry. Next time the website updates that will filter through.

Forecasts? Are you (Morningstar) still doing that? I had an email exchange with Marie Sadler some years ago 'cos a lot of the yields on the AIC site looked wrong, and she told me:

"The dividends used to calculate the yields are for the financial year, not the calendar year, and therefore could include forecasts as well as paid dividends."

Is that still the case?

That is indeed the case but it is not a sophisticated dividend forecasting model and is always designed to be as conservative as possible. An example of their forecasting methodology:

Company A pays 2 dividends per year and for 2018 it was:

June 6p
December 7p
Total = 13p.

So for 2019 the forecast is also 13p. As we move through 2019 and more information becomes available this may change. So if the June 2019 dividend is 7p instead of 6p, the forecast for the whole year would notch up to 14p . In the absence of more information they anticipate the final dividend to be unchanged.

In reality this is little different to the 12m rolling yield which is another industry standard but mainly created for open-end funds.

So to call it "forecasting" is a little misleading, as that implies advanced modelling based on underlying portfolios. This is rather balancing up the anticipated annual dividends based upon latest information.

Hope that makes sense.

DavidM13 wrote:That is indeed the case but it is not a sophisticated dividend forecasting model and is always designed to be as conservative as possible. An example of their forecasting methodology:

Company A pays 2 dividends per year and for 2018 it was:

June 6p
December 7p
Total = 13p.

So for 2019 the forecast is also 13p. As we move through 2019 and more information becomes available this may change. So if the June 2019 dividend is 7p instead of 6p, the forecast for the whole year would notch up to 14p . In the absence of more information they anticipate the final dividend to be unchanged.

In reality this is little different to the 12m rolling yield which is another industry standard but mainly created for open-end funds.

So to call it "forecasting" is a little misleading, as that implies advanced modelling based on underlying portfolios. This is rather balancing up the anticipated annual dividends based upon latest information.

Hope that makes sense.

Not an awful lot, no. Firstly, I think you'll find that 12m rolling yield is the standard that everyone looks at for all equity investments (and their portfolios overall), not something "mainly created for open-end funds", and secondly, given your description above, if you are assuming that the "forecast" dividends will be the same as that in the past 12m then why not just go with the standard 12m rolling yield anyway?

Or are you saying that if, say, XYZ, declares that they intend to double the dividend for the next year then the AIC site will show a doubling of the yield, even though none of it has been paid out yet?

If so I personally think that's confusing, and you may care to take a poll on this board as to what people expect and want "yield" to mean.

However, in either case, I note looking through my correspondence with Marie Sadler on the matter that she said "Sorry for the confusion, I intend to make the Glossary notes clearer so that users will understand how the data is calculated." but that never seems to have happened.

On an aside, please note the discussion at viewtopic.php?f=54&t=17415#p217849. It seems that either there's nowhere on the AIC site that lists the definitions of the AIC Sectors, or if there is it isn't easily findable, so please pass that onto the relevant people.

Yes, sorry when I said mainly for Open End funds I meant as in not for closed end funds but I totally agree standard equities operate and display on the 12m rolling yield methodology too. Believe me, I want to go with the 12m yield figure as it allows for simple comparisons across all asset classes. However unfortunately the data providers do not allow for it on market price for investment companies. They only allow for it on NAV. We feel this is not ideal as yield should be based on market price. I have requested that Morningstar investigate the possibility of calculating this yield on price too which can help bring us in to line. Probably a few months off though.

I have fixed up the glossary to make this clearer.

We are undertaking a wholescale sector review and creating some new sectors to reflect how the industry has evolved. This is due to go live before the end of May and there will be a more prominent position on the website with all the sectors, descriptions and constituents.

One thing I have noticed previously for the 12m rolling yield is depending on the timing of payments from one year to the next you can find yourself in the unfortunate position of seeing a calculation that has only picked up 3 dividends for a quarterly payer or if timing works the other way then 5 dividends rather than the expected 4. The obvious solution to that is to instead of counting back 12 months to count back last two dividends for semi-annual payers or last 4 for quarterly payers etc.. Again this proved pretty difficult for the data providers for example if the company changed its frequency.

DavidM13 wrote:One thing I have noticed previously for the 12m rolling yield is depending on the timing of payments from one year to the next you can find yourself in the unfortunate position of seeing a calculation that has only picked up 3 dividends for a quarterly payer or if timing works the other way then 5 dividends rather than the expected 4. The obvious solution to that is to instead of counting back 12 months to count back last two dividends for semi-annual payers or last 4 for quarterly payers etc.. Again this proved pretty difficult for the data providers for example if the company changed its frequency.

Securities Trust of Scotland (STS) currently being an example of this circumstance.

BrummieDave wrote:Securities Trust of Scotland (STS) currently being an example of this circumstance.

Dave that came about because the Board decided to cut-back on their get-togethers from 5 to 4 times a year. Whereas quarterly dividends were previously paid towards the end of March, June, September and December. With the Board now only meeting 4 times a year the dividend timetable had to be moved forward by a month - March to April, June to July, September to October and December to January. As a result, STS’s first quarter of 2018, when the March payout was moved to April, shows no dividend paid.

Murray Income (MUT) also likes to do things a bit differently with its quarterly payouts. The trust is in the practice of paying out twice in the first quarter of each calendar year – at the start of January and at the end of March – and, again in the second quarter at the end of June. So, at the halfway point after two complete quarters the trust had paid out three of its four annually scheduled instalments. The third quarter is blank for shareholders with the final payout falling due in the last quarter during the month of November.

Speaking personally, while I applaud the AIC for coming up with such an Income Builder tool, it is of little use to me. I've been running data spreadsheets too long now to ditch them at this late stage.

Schroder Income Growth Fund (SCF) paid a dividend today, but this dividend is not shown in the Dividend Diary.

Only spotted as it is one of my holdings.

Bialystock wrote:Schroder Income Growth Fund (SCF) paid a dividend today, but this dividend is not shown in the Dividend Diary.

Only spotted as it is one of my holdings.

Was ok in mine. I had problems with scf at the beginning, was user error as had somehow created 2 portfolios only one of which has scf.

seagles wrote:

Bialystock wrote:Schroder Income Growth Fund (SCF) paid a dividend today, but this dividend is not shown in the Dividend Diary.

Only spotted as it is one of my holdings.

Was ok in mine. I had problems with scf at the beginning, was user error as had somehow created 2 portfolios only one of which has scf.

I lied. I just went back and looked and it does not appear now on 29th in my diary.

seagles wrote:I lied. I just went back and looked and it does not appear now on 29th in my diary.

No - you didn't lie - you simply made a mistake which you quickly corrected.

This is concerning as it is working fine for me. I am looking at the normal dividend diary and I see Schroder Income Growth for 29th April 2019 at 2.40p. And there is one other dividend for the same day (Octopus Titan VCT).

I then tested using a portfolio with this same company in and it works as expected.

Are you saying that neither of you can see this dividend?

DavidM13 wrote:This is concerning as it is working fine for me. I am looking at the normal dividend diary and I see Schroder Income Growth for 29th April 2019 at 2.40p. And there is one other dividend for the same day (Octopus Titan VCT).

I then tested using a portfolio with this same company in and it works as expected.

Are you saying that neither of you can see this dividend?

It has now reappeared, it wasn't there yesterday, very odd.

Bialystock wrote:

DavidM13 wrote:This is concerning as it is working fine for me. I am looking at the normal dividend diary and I see Schroder Income Growth for 29th April 2019 at 2.40p. And there is one other dividend for the same day (Octopus Titan VCT).

I then tested using a portfolio with this same company in and it works as expected.

Are you saying that neither of you can see this dividend?

It has now reappeared, it wasn't there yesterday, very odd.

OK. I think I have seen a pattern. SCF appears in my diary today. However, MCT has now disappeared from the 30th. It would look as if the "diary" for the current day may have a problem displaying that days Dividend payers. Hope this helps.

Thanks. Annoyingly I cannot check today as there are no dividends due! But I see one for Schroder Oriental tomorrow currently show as 1.8p so can test then.

DavidM13 wrote:Thanks. Annoyingly I cannot check today as there are no dividends due! But I see one for Schroder Oriental tomorrow currently show as 1.8p so can test then.

SOI dividend no longer showing. Probably an easy SQL fix

Yep. Bug confirmed here too. Getting the magic development team to make the fix. An odd one. Thanks for pointing out and helping identify the actual issue.

Fixed.

September's a bleak bleak month - no dividends..... !

monabri wrote:September's a bleak bleak month - no dividends..... !

It only shows known / announced dividends and September is quite far away as dividends are announced no more than 8 or 12 weeks in advance.

Only one is shown for September 2019.

Have a look at September 2018 and you can see that a load of dividends are paid that month.