Synthetic Dividend

  

Categories: Stocks

Think of it like powdered milk. Not exactly what you dream about when your grandma sends you a care package of cookies. But it works okay if the real stuff isn't around.

Dividends are cash payments companies make to stockholders. You own 100 shares of a firm that issues a quarterly dividend of $1 a share. Every three months, you get a check for $100. It's income generated just by holding a stock. Many stocks don't pay dividends. If a company believes it can create more value by reinvesting funds in it's business, it will keep the cash itself instead of sending checks to its shareholders. However, if you own these stocks, there are still ways to generate income from the shares. They aren't dividends, really. But, like dividends, they represent income you get from the shares you hold.

The most common way to create synthetic dividends is using covered call options. A call provides the holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy a stock at a certain price during a certain time frame. With this form of synthetic dividend, you sell this right to someone else. You receive a premium from the contract...income from your shares.

The potential downside comes if the person chooses to exercise their option. Now you have to sell the shares at the prearranged price, which might be below the current market price for the stock.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is Payment in Kind/PIK?44 Views

00:00

Finance allah shmoop what is payment in kind or a

00:06

pick All right so you know what a normal vanilla

00:10

dividend is right A company is so profitable it can't

00:14

think of anything else to do with its excess cash

00:16

so it just gives it back to its shareholders a

00:19

really nice gig if you can get it The company's

00:21

stock trading a twenty bucks a share pays twenty cents

00:24

a quarter in dividends or eighty cents a year and

00:27

well that yields four percent Got it that's eighty cents

00:30

over twenty bucks Simple vanilla dividend Will companies also often

00:36

carry debt The company whatever dot com has fifty million

00:39

dollars in debt which cost them six percent a year

00:42

or three million dollars a year to pay the interest

00:44

to rent that money when times were good the company

00:47

pays the interest in cash but dividends and interest payments

00:50

aren't necessarily always paid in cash They can be paid

00:55

in stock as well And yes this is weird Why

00:58

would a company pay a dividend or bond interest in

01:01

its own stock that would dilute the equity ownership of

01:05

the company So why would they do it Because they

01:07

had teo some companies will have offered bonds which give

01:11

the company the option of saying that interest either in

01:14

stock or in cash and company thinks it is in

01:18

jeopardy of potentially going bankrupt Well it will pay its

01:21

interest obligations in stock instead and this is generally a

01:25

very bad thing for equity holders and the bondholders I'm

01:28

so happy about it either because they don't know what

01:31

that stockton worth bond people are meeting potatoes kind of

01:33

people and they just like cats Thank you very much

01:36

So what does that communicate to the shareholders Well it

01:38

communicates that the company's management at least thinks it's equity

01:42

is overvalued so the company is choosing to dilute equity

01:47

holders by using its equity or stock as a currency

01:51

instead of cash and even worse the company might be

01:54

communicating well that it's cash obligations are so tight it

01:58

is so fearful of the b word that they have

02:02

to pay in stock or they might go bankrupt So

02:04

kind of armageddon ish scenario There cos will also pay

02:08

dividends in stock at times for largely the same reasons

02:11

but with different dilution dynamics Because in the case of

02:14

the equity owners of the company and people who own

02:17

their common shares all receiving you know pro ratted dividends

02:21

or equally the same number of incremental shares as dividend

02:25

meaning that the company is yes diluting itself but doing

02:29

so equally to basically everyone who is a common shareholder

02:32

So who does this screw in the process Option holders

02:36

Yeah employees usually like if they only own options they're

02:40

not entitled to dividends whether in cash or stock while

02:44

they get diluted away for there hard nonunion efforts Yeah

02:48

well this is called pick or payment in kind although

02:52

to those screwed over option holders there's a you know 00:02:55.183 --> [endTime] not much kind innit

Up Next

Finance: What is a Derivative?
23 Views

A derivative of a security is a "something" which derives its value based on the performance of that security... either a put option or a call option.

Finance: What is a Dividend?
1777 Views

What's a dividend? At will, the board of directors can pay a dividend on common stock. Usually, that payout is some percentage less than 100 of ear...

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)