No worries @Strawman - thanks for the prompt action on this. Sounds like it was more than 3 to 1 in favour of the change when I checked yesterday (26 vs 7) so a good outcome.

Makes perfect sense to me @tomsmithidg , subject to effort/cost by @Strawman of course.

If we're suggesting slight tweaks, also subject to effort/cost, Ilove to be able to use pinch & expand on my Android mobile. It seems to work on almost everything else and using the text box is sometimes difficult (and small) without this feature.

Of course, my hack is to use the PC, which is supremely quicker but nowhere near as convenient.

Could you just not sell the number of shares that equates to the amount that the dividend would have been? It does mean there would be a one day delay waiting for the sale to process on Strawman but you would get roughly the same result that you are chasing.

That's what I usually do here @occy - sell the DRP shares ASAP at the issue price or above if possible - but I think the point is that if you got the cash instead of the auto-DRP it's easier for the users, and once it's coded, it's then no problem for the system because it happens in the background automatically. Cash is the default option in real life, and I believe it should also be the default option here.

Since it doesn't require any extra data from S&P, the system here could actually offer the option of (A) DRP or (B) cash, either on a stock-by-stock basis or for all holdings for that user, but I do accept that there is some up-front effort required to code all that in, so if that's too much effort, then my vote would go towards always cash, not auto-DRP, and if we want to we can buy more of the same shares with that cash - which I usually would not - as you can't add cash here - so dividends is the ONLY way we can get more funds to invest here, other than through sales, so I tend to want to use that dividend money to invest in whatever represents the best value or risk/reward trade off at that time, not just automatically leave it in the same company it came from.

Just my opinion.

It should be easy enough (I think) to code the system to pay cash dividends. Basically, whatever the majority want.

The original idea was just to have something that allowed an even comparison across all positions. IE. We don't care how your return was generated (cap gains or dividends) we just care about the total return.

As has been suggested, you can just sell shares whenever you need cash (there's no brokerage of tax to worry about on SM), and I always liked this as it forces a reckoning in terms of opportunity cost.

But as I say, it's up to the community as to which way we go.

Sounds like a plan @Strawman - so in terms of which way the community wants to go with dividends here on Strawman.com, people can "Like" one (just one please) of the following two posts in this thread, and we could view that as a poll.

Please click on the "Thumbs Up" icon below this post if you want the dividends to STAY AS THEY ARE are, i.e. to continue to be automatically REINVESTED back into the company they came from at the closing price on the day they go ex-dividend.

Please click on the "Thumbs Up" icon below this post if you want the dividends to be CREDITED to your Strawman.com CASH balance (cash available to buy shares with) instead of being automatically reinvested at the closing price on the day they go ex-dividend.

OK, participation is entirely voluntary, but please do not click on both options, just like one of them, not both.

Click here to go to this thread and see these posts in the correct order.

Nice work @Bear77 , thanks for making this a poll.

No problem @tomsmithidg - I can't vote on any forum post or reply that I have made myself, therefore I can't vote in this poll, so whatever total we get, add one to the "Cash" option for me.

Good organising @Bear77

It looks like cash is preferred to reinvestment by 2 to 1. Given that's a solid majority, it's probably safe to call this one decided.

So, we'll make this happen. I'll keep you updated, but hopefully this is a straightforward change.