Give someone a dividend and you pay them that day but teach them to capture the dividend and you provide investment income for life! Executing a capture-the-dividend trade entails buying the stock before the ex-date so you are the shareholder of record. You then sell it to book the dividend income, making little if any capital gains (that would be nice but it is not the objective). There are many factors to consider in buying dividend stocks for tactical traders. The bigger the dividend the bigger the profi ...