Apparently, Vanguard likes to keep their ETF ex-dividend and distribution dates a secret until just a couple days before the event. It has that old mutual fund feel to it—”we’ll give you a quote after-market and allow you to buy or sell our stuff at the end of the day, otherwise go away…” As a result, the dates below are just guesses, based on previous year’s …
For iShare and SPDR ETFs you can use this page to obtain dividend history data and charts. DividendInvestor provides a nice dividend report on their free website. It includes yields and timely updates on dividends. If you click on the “Dividends Paid Since” button you will get multiple years of dividend history.
I’m don’t pay much attention to the month of the year predictors for the stock market such as “As January goes, so goes the year”. As this post points out, the statistics are hardly overwhelming. There are tax and cultural reasons (year end, lots of time off/holidays) that reasonably give December and January some seasonal effect, but as far as predictors go, it is …
I created a covered call position with SPY for a net investment of 108.43 per share, bought SPY at 110.298 and sold Feb 111 calls ( SPY 02/20/2010 111.00 C in Schwab speak) at 1.87. I sold out of the money calls because I’m pretty optimistic the market will retrace the recent drop-off. Best case profit would be 2.57 per share or 2.3%. …
USO has dropped from recent highs around 41, down to the mid 36s. I did covered calls at a net debit of 35.59. Bought USO at 36.57 and sold to open Feb 37 calls ( or “-UBO100220C37” in Fidelity speak) at .98.
