Dividends, ex-dates and splits: a close versus an adjusted close

Four dates in a dividend announcement

A company’s board declares a dividend on the declaration date and names three more dates. The record date is the day on which a shareholder has to be on the company’s books to receive the payment. The payment date is when the cash arrives. The ex-dividend date is set by the exchange, not the company: it is the first session in which the shares trade without the right to the coming dividend. A buyer on or after the ex-date does not receive it; the seller does.

JPMorgan Chase’s announcement of 15 September 2026 shows all four. The board declared a quarterly dividend of $1.65 per share, up from $1.50, payable on 31 October 2026 to stockholders of record at the close of business on 6 October 2026. The company’s third-quarter earnings release, furnished on 13 October 2026 as Exhibit 99.1 to an 8-K under Item 2.02 and Item 9.01, reports the same $1.65 per share as its common dividend for the quarter. Yahoo Finance lists the dividend event on 6 October 2026, the record date itself.

Why the ex-date is now the record date

The ex-date follows from settlement. A share bought on a given day becomes the buyer’s on the books only when the trade settles. Under the old two-day cycle (T+2), a purchase made the session before the record date settled after it, so exchanges set the ex-date one business day before the record date.

The SEC shortened the standard cycle to one business day (T+1), with a compliance date of 28 May 2024. In its rule filing for that change (SEC Release No. 34-99871, 1 April 2024), the New York Stock Exchange said the ex-dividend date for “normal” distributions “will be the same business day as the record date”. A purchase on the session before the record date now settles on the record date, so the buyer is on the books in time; a purchase on the record date settles a day late. The NYSE filing named 29 May 2024 as the first record date under the new rule, and said a record date of 28 May 2024 would still have its ex-date on 24 May.

Splits run on a separate timetable. Netflix’s record date for its ten-for-one split was 10 November 2025, but its shares began trading on a split-adjusted basis on 17 November 2025, according to its 8-K of 30 October 2025 under Item 8.01 and Item 9.01.

What the close does on the ex-date

On the ex-date, a share no longer carries the next payment, so with nothing else changing its price would be expected to be lower by about the dividend. Other news moves the stock too, so the actual change is rarely exactly that amount.

JPMorgan closed at 332.38 on 5 October 2026 and at 331.28 on 6 October 2026, the ex-date. That is a change of 331.28 − 332.38 = −1.10, or −0.33%. The dividend was 1.65. Adding it back, a holder through the ex-date had 331.28 + 1.65 = 332.93 of value per share against 332.38 the day before, a gain of 0.17% (our arithmetic). The raw close shows a small loss on the day; the holder’s position, counting the dividend owed, showed a small gain.

That is why a daily price chart of a dividend-paying stock has a small downward step four times a year in JPMorgan’s case, at each ex-date. The step belongs to the dividend, not to trading.

How the adjusted close is built

An adjusted series removes those steps by scaling every close before an ex-date down by a factor, so that the return across the ex-date matches the holder’s return. The usual factor is 1 − dividend ÷ close on the session before the ex-date.

For JPMorgan on 6 October 2026: 1 − 1.65 ÷ 332.38 = 1 − 0.0049642 = 0.9950358. In the Yahoo Finance data, the adjusted close divided by the close is 0.995036 for every session up to 5 October 2026 and exactly 1 from 6 October onwards. So Yahoo’s adjusted close of 330.73 for 5 October is 332.38 × 0.995036, and the adjusted change into the ex-date is 331.28 ÷ 330.73 − 1 = +0.17%, the same as the holder’s return computed above.

Each earlier dividend adds its own factor, and they multiply. Over the year to 20 October 2026, JPMorgan went ex-dividend on 6 January, 6 April, 6 July and 6 October 2026. The factors, each from the prior close, were 0.9955095 (1.50 ÷ 334.04), 0.9949084 (1.50 ÷ 294.60), 0.9955153 (1.50 ÷ 334.47) and 0.9950358. Their product is 0.981104, and 302.36 × 0.981104 = 296.65, which is Yahoo’s adjusted close for 20 October 2025 (our arithmetic; each factor matched Yahoo’s to six decimals).

Two consequences follow. The latest adjusted close always equals the raw close, because no dividend has yet gone ex after it. And every past adjusted close changes each time a new dividend goes ex, so an adjusted price saved from a chart today will not match the same date’s adjusted price after the next ex-date.

Price return and total return over a year

Price return uses raw closes. Total return uses adjusted closes, which amounts to assuming each dividend was reinvested in the stock at the ex-date close.

JPMorgan closed at 302.36 on 20 October 2025 and 335.26 on 20 October 2026. Price return: 335.26 ÷ 302.36 − 1 = 10.88%. Total return, from adjusted closes: 335.26 ÷ 296.65 − 1 = 13.02% (our calculation from Yahoo Finance daily closes).

A rough cross-check: the four dividends add up to 1.50 × 3 + 1.65 = 6.15, which is 6.15 ÷ 302.36 = 2.03% of the starting price. 10.88% + 2.03% = 12.91%, a little below 13.02% because reinvested dividends also share in the price gain after each ex-date.

A gap of about two percentage points a year compounds. Any return comparison between a dividend payer and a non-payer, or between a stock and an index, depends on whether both sides use the same kind of series.

What a split does to historical closes

A split changes the number of shares, not the value of the company. In a ten-for-one split each share becomes ten, so the price per share falls to about a tenth. Netflix announced a ten-for-one forward split on 30 October 2025 (8-K, Item 8.01 and Item 9.01); its 8-K of 14 November 2025 (Item 5.03 and Item 9.01) says the charter amendment took effect at 4:01 p.m. Eastern Time that day.

Yahoo shows Netflix closing at 111.217 on 14 November 2025 and 110.29 on 17 November 2025, the first split-adjusted session: a change of 110.29 ÷ 111.217 − 1 = −0.83%. The 14 November close is the price that printed divided by 10, which is why it carries three decimals; on the unadjusted basis it is 1,112.17 (our arithmetic). Unlike dividend adjustments, split adjustments are applied to Yahoo’s plain close series as well as to the adjusted one, and volumes are scaled up by the same factor.

A series without the split correction would show a one-day move from 1,112.17 to 110.29, a fall of 90.1%. That single bad data point would dominate any average, drawdown or volatility figure computed across it.

Why it matters for volatility and charts, and how to check

For ordinary dividends the effect on volatility is small but not zero. JPMorgan’s 20-day realized volatility to 20 October 2026, a window that contains the 6 October ex-date, was 14.83% from raw closes and 14.81% from adjusted closes; over the full year of 251 returns to 20 October 2026 it was 22.16% and 22.20% (our calculation from Yahoo Finance daily closes: log returns, sample standard deviation × √252). The difference grows with the size of the dividend, and a missed split correction overwhelms everything else. Our method for realized volatility is in /articles/realized-volatility-and-expected-move-maths.

To redo these numbers, request the Yahoo Finance chart API for a symbol with events=div,split: the response carries a dividends and a splits list alongside the close and adjclose arrays. Divide adjclose by close for the sessions either side of an ex-date and compare with 1 − dividend ÷ prior close. Check the dividend amount and dates against the company’s own announcement on its investor relations site, and corporate actions such as splits against its filings on SEC EDGAR; Netflix reported its split in an 8-K under Item 8.01, and each filing index lists the item numbers. Daily market context is on /markets.