Planning dividend payments like RNS

[Gerry557]

With individual shares, they announce dividends either with an RNS or within the final or 6 monthly reporting. Usually a dividend of x pence paid on "xx" date with an ex divi day of "yy"

I keep track of this on a spreadsheet. I also have a few funds and do likewise but the dividend info is not as easy to find. From the history I have an expectation when it should arrive.

I tried setting up hyperlinks to the Trustnet website as these include historic generally info on dividends. Part of the problem is identifying the correct version of the same fund. For instance.

I held Newton Global income. I had found these identifiers ISIN GB00B8BQG486 Symbols GQ4R, N3F73, RSOMEN, @GB:7:GQ4R
https://www.trustnet.com/factsheets/o/g ... -w-acc-gbp

What doesn't help is the links change, the fund was taken over now BNY Mellon and I have swapped brokers which all muddy the waters. Sometimes they swap classes.

So is there a simple or better way to plan in advance what the dividend payment should be for funds?

[Gerry557]

Another example is the
JO Hambro UK Equity Income A inc was ISIN GB00B03KP231 Symbols JP05, JOF98, JHUEID, @GB:7:JP05

This was transferred to Iweb on their website it now says
JO HAMBRO CAP MGT JOHCM UK EQ INC Y DIS (JHEQME) ISIN: GB00B95FCK64

So I assume the transfer has changed the fund class. Iweb research give me :-
https://www.markets.iweb-sharedealing.c ... 00B95FCK64

Trustnet give
Info - https://www.trustnet.com/factsheets/o/j ... come-a-acc
Divi - https://www.trustnet.com/factsheets/o/j ... come-a-acc

This didnt match but going to the all units tab and selecting JOHCM UK Equity Income A Inc then Dividends tab
https://www.trustnet.com/factsheets/O/J ... come-a-inc

0.010563010 Iweb divi actually paid
Eventually I found this JOHCM UK Equity Income Y Inc
https://www.trustnet.com/factsheets/O/I ... come-y-inc

So again how best to find the dividend payment details.

The good news is that my holding is worth more as its not £1.81 per share but £1.22p. I hope that when I check the rest they are all positive surprises

[staffordian]

I set up email alerts using investegate.co.uk. You can tailor them so as not to be swamped with irrelevant messages.

I too have a spreadsheet to list future dividend dates, announcement dates, ex div dates etc, and the way I do it for ITs is simply wait for the announcement and then enter the details, then I duplicate the line, but add a year onto the dates. Then sort by date paid. I did try refining it a little by adding columns to calculate the day so I adjust for weekends, but I don't now bother.

As you probably know, IT payment dates do tend to follow a pattern, eg last weekday of every third month, but announcements seem less structured.

My method isn't perfect but it does at least give me an idea of when I can expect announcements,,and more importantly, when I can expect dividends.

[clissold345]

I did a search on "GB00B8BQG486 dividends". The top link was this with a "Dividend history". Is it correct?

https://www.fidelity.co.uk/factsheet-da ... /dividends

[dundas666]

I use Google sheets and there's an IMPORTXML() function that I use to scrape dividends from dividendmax web pages which works pretty well.

For example for the Foresight Solar Fund IT (FSFL) here's the code to get the most recent dividend:

=IMPORTXML("https://www.dividendmax.com/united-kingdom/london-stock-exchange/investment-trusts/foresight-solar-fund-limited/dividends", "(//table[starts-with(@aria-label,'Declared and forecast')]/tbody/tr/td[8][text()!='—'])[1]")

and so to get all the quarterly dividends for a year just duplicate and replace the [1] at the end with [2], [3] and [4]

It will return you something non-numeric like "1.85p" so to get rid of the "p" and make it numeric I then do: =VALUE(LEFT(BC12,LEN(BC12)-1))
but obvs use your cell ref instead of BC12

[DavidM13]

I set up email alerts using investegate.co.uk. You can tailor them so as not to be swamped with irrelevant messages.

I too have a spreadsheet to list future dividend dates, announcement dates, ex div dates etc, and the way I do it for ITs is simply wait for the announcement and then enter the details, then I duplicate the line, but add a year onto the dates. Then sort by date paid. I did try refining it a little by adding columns to calculate the day so I adjust for weekends, but I don't now bother.

As you probably know, IT payment dates do tend to follow a pattern, eg last weekday of every third month, but announcements seem less structured.

My method isn't perfect but it does at least give me an idea of when I can expect announcements,,and more importantly, when I can expect dividends.

For CEFs you can tailor it even more using the "Alerts" function on the AIC website. Or have it as a "backstop" for your current process. We send a maximum of one email per day and it has a row per alert you are interested in with a link to take you to the information that matters. It is quite an elegant solution even if I do say so myself. You can set it to get a stock exchange announcement alert AND/OR an alert when a new dividend has ben entered by Morningstar.

There is also the Dividend diary of course, again you can tailor that to your portfolio.

Just giving out more options in case they can help.

[Tedx]

I normally just have a squinty at....

https://www.dividenddata.co.uk/dividend ... dividends#

....once in a while.

[staffordian]

For CEFs you can tailor it even more using the "Alerts" function on the AIC website. Or have it as a "backstop" for your current process. We send a maximum of one email per day and it has a row per alert you are interested in with a link to take you to the information that matters. It is quite an elegant solution even if I do say so myself. You can set it to get a stock exchange announcement alert AND/OR an alert when a new dividend has ben entered by Morningstar.

There is also the Dividend diary of course, again you can tailor that to your portfolio.

Just giving out more options in case they can help.

Thank you David. I use the site from time to time but have obviously done little more than scratch the surface of it

[Gerry557]

I set up email alerts using investegate.co.uk. You can tailor them so as not to be swamped with irrelevant messages.

I too have a spreadsheet to list future dividend dates, announcement dates, ex div dates etc, and the way I do it for ITs is simply wait for the announcement and then enter the details, then I duplicate the line, but add a year onto the dates. Then sort by date paid. I did try refining it a little by adding columns to calculate the day so I adjust for weekends, but I don't now bother.

As you probably know, IT payment dates do tend to follow a pattern, eg last weekday of every third month, but announcements seem less structured.

My method isn't perfect but it does at least give me an idea of when I can expect announcements,,and more importantly, when I can expect dividends.

Yes I use Investigate for shares and Unit trusts but it doesnt work for the funds or OEIC's

[Gerry557]

I did a search on "GB00B8BQG486 dividends". The top link was this with a "Dividend history". Is it correct?

https://www.fidelity.co.uk/factsheet-da ... /dividends

Its sort of correct. I have more decimal places

I might add more links to several websites to see if I can get something close. On Trustnet it seems to swap about a bit more and you sometimes have to remember to go to all Units and search for the right one.

[Gerry557]

I use Google sheets and there's an IMPORTXML() function that I use to scrape dividends from dividendmax web pages which works pretty well.

For example for the Foresight Solar Fund IT (FSFL) here's the code to get the most recent dividend:

=IMPORTXML("https://www.dividendmax.com/united-kingdom/london-stock-exchange/investment-trusts/foresight-solar-fund-limited/dividends", "(//table[starts-with(@aria-label,'Declared and forecast')]/tbody/tr/td[8][text()!='—'])[1]")

and so to get all the quarterly dividends for a year just duplicate and replace the [1] at the end with [2], [3] and [4]

It will return you something non-numeric like "1.85p" so to get rid of the "p" and make it numeric I then do: =VALUE(LEFT(BC12,LEN(BC12)-1))
but obvs use your cell ref instead of BC12

I Use Google sheets as it links to live share prices so automatically adjusts the value. Unfortunately that doesnt work for the funds. Anyway I put in there actual income as it can be slightly different from the expected calculation. I suspect its a rounding error cos its only a penny up or down normally.

[Gerry557]

Thanks for the ideas and help so far. Maybe I am already doing the best I can from the replies so far.

It also looking like I made a schoolboy error along the way. I suspect that on one of the broker swaps they use a similar version of the same funds. So when I found out that the share price was higher I was delighted with my extra windfall only to be knocked back when logging onto the actual broker to find that I have less units of the more expensive priced ones and that the value was more or less equal.

It looks like x3 funds have been adjusted the same way so I will recheck how it pans out when I do my end of week update.

I might see if I can remove the affected funds from my Trustnet portfolio and add the ones I actually hold. I probably have an email somewhere where I was informed of the name changes and unit adjustments but have slept since.

I cant find the funds in Google Finance either

[Charlottesquare]

I use excel with following columns:

Name- manual
Number-manual
Month-manual
Each Div per share-manual (based on last year/updated if I have spotted announcement)
Individual Div expected amount- calc
Total Div for holding-calc
% of income-calc
% of Portfolio-calc
Current Value-manual if borrowed
Cost-manual (ensure squares with HL/investigate)
Gain /(Loss)-calc
Gain/(Loss) Yield-calc
Div Yield-calc

At end I use four columns, one for each quarter, these are prepopulated with each expected dividend, as received I highlight these yellow, the foot has the total for quarter, I get all the highlighted yellow marked as received added to make a received figure and the difference is then expected still to come in quarter.

I update cash in hand and the four columns then give me expected cash at each quarter end . (I ignore forecasting incoming pension contributions as I do vary these)

Do not always update current value as I have that on HL screen already, most used/observed part is total dividends expected re year (Watch that this increases on as previous one, ideally) and expected cash by quarter end to assist planning next purchase/addition.

Likely only update about 8-12 times a year