The recent market sell-off saw the ASX 200 plunge 9.43% from its record closing high on 14 February to the closing floor on 13 March.
While no investor likes to see the market fall, this four-week dive came in handy in reducing the DRP price that most investors will pay.
But not in all cases.
Let me explain.
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What is a DRP?
DRP stands for dividend reinvestment plan.
Shareholders can use a DRP to automatically reinvest their dividends to buy more shares instead of receiving cash.
Each ASX company calculates its DRP share price differently.
Many companies use an average aggregate share price collated over several days of trading to make this calculation.
This process occurs during the weeks after the dividend is announced and before it is paid out.
This time around, a near-correction conveniently coincided with the period in which many ASX companies calculated their DRP prices.
This has led to many investors receiving DRP shares for less than where the stock was trading when the dividend was declared.
This was the case for Fortescue Ltd (ASX: FMG) and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) shares investors.
But some companies are bucking that trend.
DRP share prices for Wesfarmers, Coles, and Telstra shares
Let's take a look at the DRP share prices for these three ASX 200 companies.
Let's start with Wesfarmers Ltd (ASX: WES).
Wesfarmers calculated its DRP share price by taking the average of the daily volume-weighted average price of stock traded over 15 days from 3 March to 21 March.
This led to a DRP share price of $71.4337 per share.
On 20 February, when Wesfarmers announced its interim dividend, the share price closed at $77.62.
This means the DRP share price is 8% lower than where Wesfarmers shares closed on the day the 1H FY25 results were released.
Today, Wesfarmers shares are trading at $72.23, up 0.24% for the day.
Wesfarmers will pay a fully franked interim dividend of 95 cents per share next Tuesday, 1 April.
It will issue the DRP shares on the same day.
Wesfarmers advised that 11.5% of shareholders participated in the FY25 interim DRP.
Coles Ltd (ASX: COL) calculated its DRP share price in the first week of the ASX 200 rebound.
The ASX 200 supermarket giant used the arithmetic average of the daily volume-weighted average market price of Coles shares traded over five days from 14 March.
This resulted in a DRP share price of $18.5645.
On 27 February, when Coles announced its interim dividend, the share price closed at an all-time high of $20.38.
This means the DRP share price is 9% lower than where Coles shares were on the day of the supermarket's 1H FY25 results.
On Thursday, Coles shares are trading at $19.31, down 0.052% for the day.
Coles will pay a fully franked interim dividend of 37 cents per share and issue the DRP shares today.
Finally, Telstra Group Ltd (ASX: TLS) shares.
The ASX 200 telco calculated its DRP share price by taking the arithmetic average of the daily volume-weighted average price for Telstra shares traded from 3 March to 7 March.
Using this method, Telstra determined a DRP share price of $4.193 for this round of dividends.
On 20 February, when Telstra announced its interim dividend, the share price closed at $4.14.
This means the DRP price is slightly higher than where Telstra shares were on the day the telco released its 1H FY25 report.
On Thursday, Telstra shares are steady at $4.15.
Telstra will pay a fully franked interim dividend of 9.5 cents per share and issue the DRP shares tomorrow.
