How Much Dividend Will Your Position Receive or Pay? Reading the Dividend Calendar

Cover image: on the left, a calendar-style grid with most cells empty, a few holding a short green bar and one holding a much longer red bar; on the right, two vertical bars side by side, the green one shorter than the red one, with a small box marking the gap between their tops to show that the amount received on a buy and the amount paid on a sell are not the same

The Dividend Calendar is a day-by-day ledger: for every index and US stock CFD at Titan FX, it lists which days a dividend adjustment occurred, how much a buy position received and how much a sell position paid, in the settlement currency per unit of contract size. A second table totals the amounts by month, so you can see which months of the year carry the most for a given instrument.

A CFD carries no shareholder rights. When the underlying goes ex-dividend, the account is credited or debited a "dividend adjustment": the buyer receives it, the seller pays it. Three questions come up in practice: what unit the numbers are in, why the buy and sell amounts differ for US stocks, and how much a short pays when it is held across an ex-dividend date.

The table shows actual adjustments per unit of contract size; on US stocks the buy side receives less than the sell side pays; the quickest way to cost a short is last year's table. The sections below cover how to read the numbers, the US-stock gap, and three ways to use the tool.

Key Takeaways

The amounts are actual dividend adjustments per unit of contract size, in the settlement currency: buys receive, sells pay. To convert to your position, multiply by lots and contract size; JPN225's contract size is 100
US stocks receive less on the buy side than they pay on the sell side: Apple shows Buy 0.221 and Sell 0.26, and every stock checked comes out at 85%. The page gives no reason
Indices show the same amount on both sides. JPN225's entries cluster in March and September, at roughly ¥30,000 per lot
A blank means no entry that day; GER40 is blank throughout, and the Titan FX website states it is not currently subject to dividend adjustment
This is a history, not a calendar of future ex-dividend dates. Use it to cost a short before opening it, to reconcile an account entry, and alongside swaps to check overnight holding costs

Table of Contents

1. What the Dividend Calendar Is and When to Use It
2. How Dividend Adjustments Are Calculated: Currency, Unit and Direction
3. US Stock CFDs: Why the Buy and Sell Amounts Differ
4. How to Use It: Short Costs, Reconciliation and Holding Costs
5. FAQ
6. Summary

1. What the Dividend Calendar Is and When to Use It

Buying a stock CFD does not make you a shareholder, and you do not receive the dividend the company pays. In its place there is a dividend adjustment: at the ex-dividend date, accounts holding a buy position are credited a corresponding amount, and accounts holding a sell position are debited the same. Index CFDs work the same way, adjusted proportionally whenever a constituent goes ex-dividend.

The Dividend Calendar lists these adjustments day by day, with data from June 2023 onward. It is a record of what has already happened, not a calendar of upcoming ex-dividend dates.

Open the Dividend Calendar

The Dividend Calendar main screen with Indices, AUS200 and September 2026 selected. Three dropdowns at the top for Category, Symbol and Month; in the middle the daily table for that month with Date, Buy and Sell columns, most weekdays showing AUD amounts, positive for Buy and negative for Sell, weekends blank; below it the Monthly Dividend Trends heading, the Select Year dropdown and the twelve-month totals table. The five blocks are numbered 1 to 5

The screen has five parts:

① Category: Indices or US Stocks
② Symbol: 25 indices; the US stock list uses company names such as Apple, Coca-Cola and 3M
③ Month: one month at a time
④ Daily table: one row per calendar day, with Date, Buy and Sell columns. Days with an adjustment show the amount and currency; the rest are blank
⑤ Monthly Dividend Trends: the monthly totals for the same instrument across a year, with a year selector

It suits situations like these:

Your situation	What the tool gives you
You plan to short an index or a US stock and want to know what crossing the ex-dividend date will cost	The actual Sell amount on every past day for that instrument
An entry appears in your account history that is not a trade	The date and amount to match it against a dividend adjustment
You want to know which months of the year an index's dividends concentrate in	The monthly totals table, comparable year by year

2. How Dividend Adjustments Are Calculated: Currency, Unit and Direction

Each number in the table has three attributes:

Currency: the settlement currency. AUS200 is in AUD, JPN225 in JPY, US indices and US stocks in USD
Unit: per unit of contract size. To convert to a position, multiply the table amount by lots and by contract size. JPN225's contract size is 100 = 1 lot; for other instruments, check the symbol specification in MT4/MT5
Direction: the Buy column is positive, the Sell column negative. Buy positions receive, sell positions pay

Take the JPN225 entry for 29 September 2025: the table shows ¥298.83. One lot is ¥29,883, received on a buy and paid on a sell.

A blank means there is no entry for that day. Some instruments are blank throughout: GER40 appears in the dropdown, but the Titan FX website states it is not currently subject to dividend adjustment, and VIX and USDX likewise show no entries.

3. US Stock CFDs: Why the Buy and Sell Amounts Differ

Switch the category to US Stocks, choose Apple and May 2026, and only one row in the month has a value: 11 May, Buy 0.221USD, Sell −0.26USD. The buy side receives 85% of what the sell side pays. Check another stock and the ratio holds: NVIDIA on 4 June 2026 shows Buy 0.2125 and Sell −0.25.

The Dividend Calendar daily table with US Stocks, Apple and May 2026 selected. Only the 11 May row has values, Buy 0.221USD and Sell -0.26USD, and the two numbers are not symmetrical; every other date is blank

The gap matters in two situations. If you hold a buy and a sell on the same stock at once (a locked position), the ex-dividend date credits less than it debits, so the two sides do not net to zero. And a short pays the full dividend: 0.26 dollars a time on Apple, 1.78 on Chevron, 1.86 on McDonalds.

Most large dividend payers pay quarterly, though the frequency varies by company; the fastest check is the Monthly Dividend Trends table, which shows at a glance which months have had an adjustment. How dividends work and the ex-dividend rules are covered in the cash dividends article; whether a stock is worth holding for its dividend starts with dividend yield.

4. How to Use It: Short Costs, Reconciliation and Holding Costs

① Check before you short. A sell position pays the amount in the Sell column, and it happens as soon as you cross an ex-dividend date.

Index amounts are usually spread across the month; JPN225 is the exception. Most Japanese companies close their financial year at the end of March and their half-year at the end of September, and in the 2025 monthly totals only two months stand out: March at ¥307.677 and September at ¥298.83. Multiply by the contract size of 100 and each is a single charge of roughly ¥30,000 per lot.

If you plan to hold a JPN225 short through the end of March or September, price that in first. For a US stock short, look at the amount and month of each of the company's past payments.

The Dividend Calendar's Monthly Dividend Trends table for JPN225 in 2025. The March row at Buy 307.677JPY and the September row at Buy 298.83JPY are clearly larger than every other month; January, February, June, July, August and December show small amounts below a few dozen yen, and the remaining months are blank

② Reconcile. When an entry unrelated to a trade appears in your account history, find the same date in the daily table and cross-check it against the direction and lot size; the account statement is the authoritative figure.

③ Read it together with swaps. Dividend adjustments and swap points are two separate flows when a position is held overnight: one is tied to the ex-dividend date, the other accrues daily. A long index position receives the dividend, with swap accounted for separately; a short pays the dividend, again with swap separate. Both tables need checking. There is a separate article on reading the swap table:

How to Check Swap Points

5. FAQ

Q1: Why do the buy and sell amounts differ for US stocks?

Every US stock checked shows the buy amount at 85% of the sell amount, for example Apple at Buy 0.221 and Sell 0.26. The page does not explain why. Indices show no such gap.

Q2: Is the amount in the table per lot?

It is per unit of contract size, so multiply by lots and by the instrument's contract size. JPN225's contract size is 100 = 1 lot; for other instruments, check the symbol specification in MT4/MT5.

Q3: Why are so many dates blank?

A blank means no entry for that day: weekends, trading days with no ex-dividend, or an instrument that is not covered. The Titan FX website states GER40 is not currently subject to dividend adjustment, and VIX and USDX show no entries either. A whole month can also be blank simply because the month's ex-dividend date has not arrived yet.

Q4: Can last year's entries be used to estimate this year's?

Only for seasonality, meaning which months tend to carry the larger amounts. The table shows actual historical amounts with no guarantee for the future: companies raise, cut and reschedule dividends, and indices change constituents and weights. Last year's figure for the same month is not this year's estimate.

Q5: Why does a CFD short pay dividends?

When the underlying goes ex-dividend its price reflects the dividend. A CFD carries no shareholder rights, so the provider passes that effect between longs and shorts through the dividend adjustment: the Titan FX index CFD rules state that buy positions receive the adjustment and sell positions pay it. Hold a short across the ex-dividend date and you pay the amount in the Sell column.

6. Summary

The Dividend Calendar lists the dividend adjustments that actually occurred in CFD accounts: which day, how much a buy received and how much a sell paid, in the settlement currency per unit of contract size. To convert to a position, multiply by lots and contract size.

On US stocks the buy amount is smaller than the sell amount, and anyone running a locked position or a short needs to price the gap in. Indices are symmetrical, and JPN225 concentrates at the end of March and September at roughly ¥30,000 per lot.

It is a history, not a calendar of future ex-dividend dates. Check before you short, look back when you reconcile, and read it alongside swaps when you hold overnight: those three jobs are what the table is for.

Further Reading

✏️ About the Author

Titan FX Trading Strategy Lab. We produce educational content for investors across a broad range of instruments, including forex, commodities (crude oil, precious metals, agricultural products), stock indices, US equities and digital assets.

Primary Sources

Tool specification: the Category, Symbol and Month dropdowns, the daily and monthly tables, and the notes below the Titan FX Research Dividend Calendar on settlement currency, contract size, JPN225 and buy/sell direction
Measured data: the daily amounts and monthly totals on that page for Apple, NVIDIA, Chevron, McDonalds, US500, JPN225, GER40, VIX and USDX across the months of 2025 and 2026
Official statements: the dividend adjustment formula (dividend × lots × contract size), the buy/sell direction and the GER40 exclusion on the index CFD page of the Titan FX website