PGR ex-dividend on 8/29 (9%, special)
The Progressive Corporation will pay a special dividend of $2.00 on September 14 to holders as of Wednesday, August 29. That’s 8.5% of the share price of $23.50. The Board also approved a new authorization for the Company to repurchase up to 100 million of its Common Shares over the course of the next 24 months. The Company also anticipates offering for sale approximately $1 billion of hybrid debt securities in the near future.
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:44 am
When you go to the PGR web site, they talk about it as returning capital to the stockholders, though they do not specifically state what the tax categorization will be.
So ignore it if you are looking for dividends, until informed otherwise.
June 25th, 2007 at 6:30 am
Previously Marcu raised the question “How may days in advance do I need to short a stock that has declared a special dividend?”. Could someone please answer that?
July 24th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Enough to short the day before.
August 13th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
But why short it if the drop in value is just the dividend you have foregone? You have to presume it will drop more than the dividend, I guess, but why?
August 13th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
There was a good run up on this stock… if you missed it, you may get lucky post exdiv. I’d go for a Put, just in case…
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:30 am
Hey,
If you short the stock, you are responsible for the payment of the dividend as the temporary owner of borrowed shares. In other words, if you short 1,000 shares at $22.00 prior to ex-dividend, you will owe $2,000 post dividend (1000 X $2.00) and will have a short position that is up $2,000 — so you will be net zero on the trade.
You need to study the markets more before trading.
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:00 am
Well, yes, but the idea is that stock tend to drift down after exdiv as some people were waiting for the dividend to sell, possibly for its tax advantage or for short term trading.