Where is my dividend?
Your dividend should show up in one of a few methods: (1) Cash in your trading account (2) A check mailed to you (3) A deposit to a linked bank account (4) As additional new shares in the stock, as the result of a DRIP setup.
Not sure how this has got this far with no obvious discussion about the huge tax advantages of share buy backs vs dividend paying.  Companies face a very simple choice with excess capital - pay to shareholders in the form of a taxable dividend, invest in future growth where they expect to make more than $1 for every $1 invested, or buy back the equivalent amount of stock on the market, thus concentrating the value of each share the equivalent amount with no tax issues. Of these, dividends are often by far the worst choice. Virtually all sane shareholders would just rather the company put the capital to work or concentrate the value of their shares by taking many off the market rather than paying a taxable dividend. I haven't seen any of the other answers address this point – shares are (a form of) ownership of a company and thus they are an entitlement to the proceeds of the company, including proceeds from liquidation. Imagine an (extreme, contrived) example whereby you own shares in a company that is explicitly intended to only exist for a finite and definite period, say to serve as the producers of a one-time event. Consider a possible sequence of major events in this company's life: So why would the shares of this hypothetical company be worth anything? Because the company itself is worth something, or rather the stuff that the company owns is worth something, even (or in my example, especially) in the event of its dissolution or liquidation. Besides just the stuff that a company owns, why else would owning a portion of a company be a good idea, i.e. why would I pay for such a privilege? Buying shares of a company is a good idea if you believe (and are correct) that a company will make larger profits or capture more value (e.g. buy and control more valuable stuff) than other people believe. If your beliefs don't significantly differ from others then (ideally) the price of the companies stock should reflect all of the future value that everyone expects it to have, tho that value is discounted based on time preference, i.e. how much more valuable a given amount of money or a given thing of value is today versus some time in the future. Some notes on time preference: But apart from whether you should buy shares in a specific company, owning shares can still be valuable. Not only are shares a claim on a company's current assets (in the event of liquidation) but they are also claims on all future assets of the company. So if a company is growing then the value of shares now should reflect the (discounted) future value of the company, not just the value of its assets today. If shares in a company pays dividends then the company gives you money for owning shares. You already understand why that's worth something. It's basically equivalent to an annuity, tho dividends are much more likely to stop or change whereas the whole point of an annuity is that it's a (sometimes) fixed amount paid at fixed intervals, i.e. reliable and dependable. As CQM points out in their answer, part of the value of stock shares, to those that own them, and especially to those considering buying them, is the expectation or belief that they can sell those shares for a greater price than what they paid for them – irrespective of the 'true value' of the stock shares. But even in a world where everyone (magically) had the same knowledge always, a significant component of a stock's value is independent of its value as a source of trading profit. As Jesse Barnum points out in their answer, part of the value of stocks that don't pay dividends relative to stocks that do is due to the (potential) differences in tax liabilities incurred between dividends and long-term capital gains. This however, is not the primary source of value of a stock share. I know this question is old. I also have a kotak trading account. There is no way to get the dividend report from the trading account. The dividend is directly credited to your bank account by the companies through registrar. There is no involvement of trading account in there. So the best possible way will be to get the bank account statement for the financial year and filter out the dividend transactions manually. I know it is tedious, but there doesn't seem to be any easy way out there for this. Few days back I started using portfolio manager provided by economic times. It lists all the dividend earned in my stocks automatically. In the absence of a country designation where the mutual fund is registered, the question cannot be fully answered.  For US mutual funds, the N.A.V per share is calculated each day after the close of the stock exchanges and all purchase and redemption requests received that day are transacted at this share price. So, the price of the mutual fund shares for April 2016 is not enough information: you need to specify the date more accurately. Your calculation of what you get from the mutual fund is incorrect because in the US, declared mutual fund dividends are net of the expense ratio. If the declared dividend is US$ 0.0451 per share, you get a cash payout of US$ 0.0451 for each share that you own: the expense ratio has already been subtracted before the declared dividend is calculated.  The N.A.V. price of the mutual fund also falls by the amount of the per-share dividend (assuming that the price of all the fund assets (e.g. shares of stocks, bonds etc) does not change that day). Thus. if you have opted to re-invest your dividend in the same fund, your holding has the same value as before, but you own more shares of the mutual fund (which have a lower price per share). For exchange-traded funds, the rules are slightly different. In other jurisdictions, the rules might be different too. "I keep spreadsheets that verify each $ distribution versus the rate times number of shares owned. For mutual funds, I would use Yahoo's historical data, but sometimes shows up late (a few days, a week?) and it isn't always quite accurate enough. A while back I discovered that MSN had excellent data when using their market price chart with dividends ""turned on,"" HOWEVER very recently they have revamped their site and the trusty URLs I have previously used no longer work AND after considerable browsing, I can no longer find this level of detail anywhere on their site !=( Happily, the note above led me to the Google business site, and it looks like I am ""back in business""... THANKS!" It means a 3% return on the value of the stock. If a stock has a $10 share price, the dividend would be $0.30. Normally though, the dividends are announced as a fixed amount per share, because the share price fluctuates. If a percentage were announced, then the final cost would not be known as the share priced could change radically before the dividend date. Adjusting for a market change from day to day, the dividend should have no impact on you. Your X shares time $Y should be nearly identical right after that dividend hits the account.  And within the 401(k) or IRA for that matter, the accounting doesn't matter most of the time. Outside a retirement account, you need to pay tax on the dividend, and add the newly purchased shares' cost to your cost basis. This answer contains three assumptions: New Share Price: Old Share Price * 1.0125 Quarterly Dividend: (New Share Price*0.01) * # of Shares in Previous Quarter Number of Shares: Shares from Previous Quarter + Quarterly Dividend/New Share Price For example, starting from right after Quarter One: New share price: $20 * 1.0125 = 20.25  1000 shares @ $20.25 a share yields $20.25 * 0.01 * 1000 = $202.5 dividend New shares: $202.5/20.25 = 10 shares Quarter Two: New share price: $20.503 1010 shares @ 20.503 yields $20.503*0.01*1010 = $207.082 dividend New shares: $207.082/20.503 = 10.1 shares Repeat over many cycles: 8 Quarters (2 years): 1061.52 shares @ $21.548 a share 20 Quarters (5 years): 1196.15 shares @ $25.012 a share 40 Quarters (10 years): 1459.53 shares @ $32.066 a share Graphically this looks like this:  It's late enough someone may want to check my math ;). But I'd also assert that a 5% growth rate and a 4% dividend rate is pretty optimistic.