File - Dividends.csv

Some Portfolio Slicer users choose not to enter Dividend transactions into Transactions table, but choose to generate such dividend payment information from data in Dividends.csv file. Portfolio Slicer has some limitations when creating dividend information using this method, and if you are OK with these limitations - then your dividend information will be as accurate as data in Dividends.csv file.

• First line in this files should be header row with text "PayDate DividendsPerShare Symbol" (without quotes, TAB instead of space).
• Starting from the second row, each row should contain TAB separated values for Date (this should be Ex-Dividend date for proper symbol quantity calculation), dividend amount per share paid and "Symbol" of that dividend payment.
• This file should have at least one record with data. That means this file should have at least 2 rows - header and one more row with data. If you are not using "Generated Dividends" feature, then you can simply create additional row with any date in your analyzed period, DividendPerShare amount of 0.0000000001 and Symbol as either "* Cash" or "Market Index" symbol you track.
• "PayDate" value in each row should have format YYYY-MM-DD. So length of each value for "Date" column should be exactly 10 characters. Normally this should be "Ex-Dividend date" - Portfolio Slicer will calculate number of shares you held at this date and will calculate total dividend amount as "number of shares held at PayDate" x "DidivendPerShare ".
• "DividendPerShare" value in each row should be decimal number where integer and fractional part is separated by character dot "." and not comma as it is custom in many European countries. This value should not have any thousand separators.
• "Symbol" column should have value that is listed in the Symbol table.
• Minimum date in this file should be equal or after "MinDate" parameter in Config table.
• Maximum date in this file should be equal or before todays date. Normally this should be the date for last business day.

Data for Dividends.csv file

Some Portfolio Slicer users subscribe to service that can provide Dividend payment data to them. These users will be able to use tools from their data provider to build Dividends.csv file as per requirements described above. Portfolio Slicer comes with additional scripts that will check if data in your file meets requirements.

Other Portfolio Slicer users can download dividend payment data from different financial websites. Most popular website where you can download financial data is "Yahoo Finance". If dividends for your stock is not available there, then you can also get dividend payment information from that "Investment website".

Dividends from Yahoo Finance

Yahoo Finance is the most popular website that provides users with dividend payment information for many investments. You can access dividend payment information from "Historical Prices" page by choosing option "Dividends Only":

At the bottom of such page you will see a link "Download to Spreadsheet"

From information you get above you can easily generated dividend payments required for Portfolio Slicer.

Dividends from Investment website

For investments that do not have dividend payment information on Yahoo Finance website, you should be able to find such information on investment companies website. Almost every company has a page for their Stock that list all historical dividend payments. For example here is a page with historical dividend payment information from Apple website:

Download sample Dividends.csv file here.