When to buy stocks to receive dividends?

At the moment, there are a lot of companies that regularly pay dividends on their securities.

The size of such payments is sometimes more than 10% per annum, which attracts the attention of a large number of potential investors.

It seems to them that there is nothing easier than buying shares with a high income and then receiving dividend payments on the invested funds.

But in fact, such an investment requires taking into account a lot of nuances, the most important of which is the time of purchase of the security.

Sometimes novice investors think that in order to receive dividends they need to hold a company's security for a certain period of time. How this happens with bank deposits, when in order to receive interest on a deposit you need to enter into an agreement for a period of one month or more:

With dividend income, you do not need to follow such rules; it is enough to purchase a security a couple of days before the closure of the shareholder register. That is, even if dividends are paid once a year, and you purchase shares a week before the register closes, you will still receive the same amount as investors holding shares for a whole year.

When is the best time to buy a stock?

At first glance, it may seem that the best option is to buy shares before the closure of the shareholder register, because in this case you can get a couple of percent of profit in just a few days.

But, unfortunately, this theory is not always confirmed in practice; the reason for this is the market price of the security itself.

As a rule, the stock begins to grow as soon as the amount of dividends for the reporting period becomes known:

For example, the management of Gazprom stated that at the end of 2021, about 48 rubles per share will be paid, and this amounts to a profit of almost 14% of the current price.

Such a message provoked an increase in the price of shares, and you will already buy a security at a more expensive price than a month ago.

In addition, after making the payment itself, the price of the shares, as a rule, falls and you will sell the asset cheaper than you bought it.

Therefore, when purchasing shares of a company, it is better to focus not on the time of payment of dividends, but on the current market price and prospects for its growth. For example, if we take Gazprom, then by the spring of 2022 there is a high probability of a decrease in gas prices, which means a drop in the value of the shares of the company itself.

Therefore, in this case, it is better to wait until spring and make a purchase decision taking into account the current price of Gazprom shares.