For the first time ever, I have bought, held until Ex-Date, then sold purely for the dividend, the stock dropped as they always do, but I should still make ÂŁ7.
Another stock has dropped more than the dividend amount, so I am holding that one until it recovers to at least half the loss, then I will still make around ÂŁ3.
Has anyone had much success with this plan? It is high risk and I am still figuring the best way to maximise my income.
Any advice is much appreciated.
I can’t cope with all these responses… lol
For long term investing, total return is the way to go.
People get stuck on Growth / Dividends, but you can always withdraw some capital so Total return IMO, unless you are retired and drawing down, then a diversified dividend portfolio that can ride out a storm is 
If you’re looking for more income companies, then a decent UK one imo is UKW. Check its dividend cover and discount to NAV. It earns enough and is now big enough that it doesn’t necessarily need to raise financing from investors to grow. *Not advice, DYOR.
I think it’s just one of those things you should Google yourself to find out it doesn’t work and relies on the whims of the market.
Thank you both for the replies.
I have read many articles on it, but I was just wondering what others do.
I still have my long term Div shares, spread across different sectors and countries, and they are growing nicely.
I did have UKW until recently when I sold for a decent return, which I then invested in my monthly div pie.
The dividend capture strategy is high risk, as if the shares don’t rebound to pre ex date price, the div return is hit or even wiped out and as we all know thanks to Mr “Eat as much as you want” Buffet.
“Never lose money.”
For now, I have ÂŁ700 I am playing with, invested it one, sold that, that returns ÂŁ7 in a few weeks, then I bought an ETF, but that dropped a lot on ex date, more than the div return, so will wait for that to rebound, hopefully. Then I will sell and so on and so on. You never know, this time next year, I could be a millionaire.
Dougal and Scrooge know what they’re talking about it. They’re trying to stop you making a common mistake.
If it was so easy, everybody would be doing it and we’d all be millionaires.
It’s not worthwhile especially when you factor in time out of the market, bid-ask spread, forex, stamp duty, the risk to your capital and other factors.
Plus it’s a timesink. Say you did a few hours’ reasearch on that trade that returned £7.
To put that in perspective, you could have worked an hour at minimum wage and done better.
Be careful of chasing yield at the expense of your capital – income tends to underperform in the long run and it’s total return that matters.
With investing, no matter what you think you’re not the first person to think of something. In this instance you’re definitely not.
Here’s a thought experiment. If it worked, why aren’t the folks with billions of cash spare doing it? There are quite literally funds out there looking for fractions of a percent gains on trades and yet they aren’t doing this strat - why?
Because it doesn’t work and is a waste of time.
This.
It took me 20 seconds to find an ex div with a healthy yield, I held that stock for 24 hours. I then sold it with no loss. So, I made ÂŁ7 in 20 seconds. It is not difficult to find ex dates with good yields.
As for Topher and Scrooge, I hold many stocks, most long term. As I said, I am just trying something. I don’t pay tax it is in my isa. So, maybe cool the attitude. I do lots of research into risks, my stocks are spread and so far I am up over a few grand from my long term investments and div income.
Maybe read what you type before you send it and think, would I speak to someone like this in real life. Because I bet you wouldn’t.
You ask for any help. You’re given it and you ignore it.
And now you’re here. Crazy.
But this is not the norm and it’s not scalable. The markets are mostly efficient that a share should drop on ex by the value of the dividend payable.
If you want something a bit more long term, but difficult to time, check out private equity trusts. I bought a few last October that went almost +100% in under 6 months. Bit of luck but some of them are fairly illiquid yet the underlying holdings are sound. You can sometimes catch anomalies in the share price where there is more selling demand to get in at a good value.
Who’d have thought Dougal would give the best advice when he can’t tell how big a cow is… (Please get this reference or I sound silly)
Cheers, could you give example tickers of PETs?
As I said, it is just a dip your toe in the water test to see if it is viable, who knows what’ll happen. If KEFI explodes this week I’m retired by Friday and pigs will fly too.
I can confirm it’s this 
Google Father Ted Cows.
Are you in the kefi telegram group mate? What’s your name in tg?
I get good advice there generally.
You can always backtest your strats to get a better picture. This has helped me.
Cheers
Hey,
I’m not on telegram.
Yer I did this to see the average time it takes a share to rebound after the ex date, some are a few hours some are days and some just flat line.
At the moment I’m up about £15, when the stock is sold at a small loss but the dividend income wipes away the loss, or I’ve actually sold the stock at a profit.
At the moment XDN0 goes ex tomorrow, that should then bring in a further £15 if I sell it at the bought price. Here’s hoping.