Dividend
Market basicsCash a company distributes to shareholders out of its profits, received by whoever owns the share before the ex-date.
In plain terms
Sustainable only when covered by free cash flow — a company borrowing to maintain its dividend is buying goodwill with someone else's money. It is now taxed in your hands at your slab rate.
Read the full lesson →Dividend discount model
Fundamental analysisAlso called: DDM, Gordon growth model
Valuing a share as the present value of all the dividends it will pay.
In plain terms
The Gordon growth version is next year’s dividend ÷ (required return − growth). Very sensitive to the gap between those two rates.
Read the full lesson →Dividend mandate
Market basicsThe bank account details held for you — by your depository participant for demat holdings, or on the folio at the registrar — into which dividends and redemptions are credited.
In plain terms
It does not follow you when you change banks, and it lives in a different place for every folio. A dividend that fails to arrive is usually this record rather than the company.
Read the full lesson →Dividend policy
Fundamental analysisThe stated approach determining how much profit is returned to shareholders.
In plain terms
In a PSU it may follow the promoter’s fiscal calendar rather than the business’s reinvestment needs.
Read the full lesson →Dividend trap
Fundamental analysisA high yield created by a falling price and an unaffordable dividend about to be cut.
In plain terms
The yield was never available. It was arithmetic, not income.
Read the full lesson →Dividend yield
Fundamental analysisAnnual dividend per share divided by the share price.
In plain terms
A high yield usually means the price collapsed, not that the company got generous.
Read the full lesson →IEPF
Regulation & taxAlso called: Investor Education and Protection Fund, Unclaimed dividend, Unclaimed dividends
The Investor Education and Protection Fund, to which dividends left unclaimed for a number of consecutive years fixed in the Companies Act — and the shares behind them — are transferred.
In plain terms
Not a confiscation. The rightful owner can claim them back through a prescribed application verified by the company and then the authority, and it is far harder for an heir than for the person who bought the shares.
Read the full lesson →Deemed dividend
Regulation & taxA receipt the income-tax law treats as a dividend although it does not arise from an ordinary declaration — including, for buybacks from 1 October 2024, the whole consideration a shareholder receives on tendering shares.
In plain terms
The head of income decides what you keep. The entire amount is taxed at your slab rate rather than the gain at the equity rate, and the cost of the shares is not set against it — it becomes a capital loss in a different part of the return.
Read the full lesson →Inter-corporate dividend
Regulation & taxA dividend received by one company from another. Where an Indian company receives one and itself distributes a dividend within the period prescribed, it may deduct what it distributes against what it received, up to the amount received.
In plain terms
The relief is conditional on passing the cash on. A holding company that receives a dividend and keeps it is taxed on the receipt at its own rate, which is part of why cash sitting one layer down is worth less than it looks.
Read the full lesson →Unpaid dividend account
Regulation & taxA dedicated account into which a company must move any declared dividend it has not paid or that has not been claimed within the statutory payment window.
In plain terms
A ring-fence rather than a write-off. The money stays payable to whoever comes forward, until the seven-year clock hands it to the Investor Education and Protection Fund.
Read the full lesson →AIS
Regulation & taxAlso called: Annual Information Statement
The Annual Information Statement on the income tax portal, listing the transactions the department already holds on record — share sales reported by your broker, dividends and interest received.
In plain terms
Read it before you file rather than after. A mismatch is the commonest trigger for a notice, and it is almost always clerical: an account you forgot about, or a corporate action recorded differently.
Read the full lesson →Corporate action
Market basicsA company event that changes share count or price — split, bonus, dividend, rights, demerger.
In plain terms
When a chart shows a mysterious overnight halving, check announcements before forming a view.
Read the full lesson →Equity method
AccountingAlso called: One-line consolidation, Equity accounting
The treatment of an associate or joint venture under which the investment starts at cost and is then increased by the investor’s share of the investee’s profit, reduced by its share of losses, and reduced again by dividends received.
In plain terms
One post-tax line of profit and one line of carrying amount. No revenue, no assets, no borrowings and no interest cost from the investee reach your accounts at all.
Read the full lesson →Financing cash flow
AccountingAlso called: Cash flow from financing
The cash flow bucket covering borrowing and repayment, share issues and buybacks, and dividends paid.
In plain terms
Read it alongside the other two. Negative operating cash flow with a large positive here describes a company kept alive by fresh borrowing rather than by trading.
Read the full lesson →Free reserves
AccountingThe reserves of a company available for distribution as dividend under the Companies Act, as distinct from reserves earmarked or created for a specific statutory purpose.
In plain terms
The dividend constraint sits at the level of the company writing the cheque, never at the level of the group. A subsidiary with carried-forward losses still to absorb can be holding cash it is not permitted to distribute.
Read the full lesson →Payout ratio
Fundamental analysisThe proportion of earnings paid out as dividends.
In plain terms
Under about 60% is affordable. Above 100% the dividend is funded from reserves or debt — a countdown.
Read the full lesson →Price index
Market basicsAlso called: Price return index
An index computed from the prices of its constituents alone, with dividends excluded — the series almost every headline index level quoted in India refers to.
In plain terms
The counterpart of the total return index, not another name for it. Comparing a holding that pays out against a price index charges the holding for its own dividends, and the error is the difference in the two payout rates, compounded.
Read the full lesson →Registrar and transfer agent
Market basicsAlso called: RTA
The firm a company appoints to maintain its register of members and to process folio-level requests — dividends, transmission, dematerialisation and corporate action entitlements.
In plain terms
For anything held in physical form this is your counterparty, not your broker. A handful of these firms maintain the registers of most listed Indian companies.
Read the full lesson →Retained earnings
AccountingCumulative profits a company has kept rather than paid out as dividends.
In plain terms
The harvest management decided not to distribute. Where it went over ten years tells you more about them than any strategy deck.
Read the full lesson →Total return
Market basicsPrice change plus dividends, the complete return from holding an asset.
In plain terms
A stock yielding 6% while falling 15% is not producing income. Judge holdings on this, never on yield. On a high-payout instrument such as a REIT it is most of the answer, and none of it is on the price chart.
Read the full lesson →Total return index
Market basicsAlso called: TRI
The same index basket computed with dividends reinvested, as against the price index, which excludes them.
In plain terms
Over weeks the difference is invisible; over a decade it is two different-looking charts. Any statement that “the index went nowhere” is being made on the series that throws the dividends away.
Read the full lesson →Upstreaming
AccountingMoving cash from a subsidiary up to its parent — by dividend, by repayment of an intra-group loan, or by a charge for interest, royalty or services.
In plain terms
Consolidated cash flow says what the group earned. Upstreaming is what it takes to get any of it to the entity whose shares are listed, and each route carries a different cost and a different set of permissions.
Read the full lesson →Backwardation
DerivativesA market in which the futures price trades below the spot price of the underlying.
In plain terms
Reads as bearish and frequently is not. Rule out a dividend due before expiry, and remember that a crowded long book in a stock under F&O ban can only sell futures — the discount that produces is plumbing, not opinion.
Read the full lesson →Cost of carry
DerivativesThe annualised gap between the futures price and spot, calculated as ((futures − spot) ÷ spot) × (365 ÷ days to expiry).
In plain terms
Roughly in line with short-term interest rates in an ordinary market. A negative number is not automatically bearish: check for a dividend before expiry first, because the futures holder does not receive it and the price discounts it.
Read the full lesson →Covenant waiver
Fundamental analysisA lender agreeing not to act on a breach on this occasion, without giving up the right it acquired.
In plain terms
It was not granted free — look for what it cost, in a wider spread, security created, a dividend not declared or capital expenditure deferred. And a waiver reached after the reporting date does not move a reclassified loan back to non-current.
Read the full lesson →Expected return
Risk & psychologyThe return an asset can reasonably be projected to deliver over a long horizon.
In plain terms
Earnings growth plus dividend yield, plus or minus re-rating. Plan at 10–11% for Indian equity.
Read the full lesson →Face value
Market basicsAlso called: Par value, Nominal value
The nominal value assigned to a share in the company’s capital accounts, commonly ₹10, ₹5, ₹2 or ₹1 in India.
In plain terms
A bookkeeping figure with no relation to what the share is worth. Dividend percentages are declared against it, which is how a "300% dividend" turns out to be ₹6.
Read the full lesson →Holding company
Fundamental analysisA listed entity whose principal asset is stakes in other companies rather than an operating business of its own.
In plain terms
You own the underlying indirectly and receive only what flows up as dividends, taxed on the way. That is the structural reason these trade below the sum of their parts.
Read the full lesson →NRO account
Regulation & taxA rupee account for income earned in India, with repatriation capped annually.
In plain terms
Rent, dividends and pension land here. Sending money out needs a limit and a CA certificate.
Read the full lesson →Promoter salary
Fundamental analysisRemuneration paid to the controlling family in executive roles.
In plain terms
Rising promoter pay with no dividend and flat profit is the clearest red flag in the note.
Read the full lesson →Put-call parity
DerivativesAlso called: Conversion, Reversal
The no-arbitrage link between a call, a put, the share and the strike: C + PV(K) = P + S.
In plain terms
If one side gets cheaper, traders buy it and sell the other until the gap closes. Dividends and costs explain most apparent breaks.
Read the full lesson →Standalone
AccountingAccounts covering the parent legal entity only.
In plain terms
Subsidiary profit appears only as dividends and subsidiary debt not at all. Rarely the right set.
Read the full lesson →SWP
Market basicsSystematic Withdrawal Plan — a fixed amount redeemed from a fund at regular intervals.
In plain terms
More tax-efficient than dividends: only the gain portion is taxed, and at capital gains rates.
Read the full lesson →