With reporting season over, ASX companies are slowly winding their way through the ex-dividend process.

After a company announces its financial results and dividend, ASX investors have a short window to buy the share with the payment attached.

On the ex-dividend date, the stock begins trading without the next dividend payment attached.

We typically see share prices fall on ex-div dates because the shares are inherently less valuable without the dividend included.

Ex-dividend dates provide two opportunities for investors.

You can buy an ASX share before its ex-dividend date, which gives you immediate entitlement to the next dividend payment.

Or, you can buy an ASX share on its ex-div date, when the share price typically falls, and take advantage of that dip.

As usual, we've seen plenty of examples of ASX shares falling on their ex-dividend dates this year.

Yesterday, South 32 Ltd (ASX: S32) shares closed 1.5% down after going ex-dividend.

The Super Retail Group Ltd (ASX: SUL) share price fell 4.2% on its ex-div date this month.

CSL Ltd (ASX: CSL) shares dropped 2.15% on their ex-dividend date.

The Pro Medicus Ltd (ASX: PME) share price fell 1.3% on its ex-dividend date.

Nine Entertainment Co Holdings Ltd (ASX: NEC) shares provide an extraordinary example, plummeting 36% on ex-div day.

However, this was more a reflection of the special dividend paid to Nine shareholders this time around after the sale of Domain.

Nine Entertainment is one of several companies that announced special dividends during the August earnings season.

9 ASX shares with ex-dividend dates next week

Here is a sample of the ASX shares going ex-dividend next week.

Further reading

If you own ASX shares and would like to review the earnings reports of your companies, please see our comprehensive calendar page.

The post 9 ASX shares going ex-dividend next week appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

At the same time, the S&P/ASX 200 Resources index (XJR) is beating most of the pack, gaining around 2% since the open today.

In light of this, these 3 ASX resources shares are all going ex-dividend today. This means shareholders have until the closing bell today to buy these shares to qualify for the payments.

Here are the details.

Ci Resources Ltd (ASX: CII)

Diversified industrial company Ci Resources is set to pay a 1 cent per share final dividend to its shareholders on 29 October after going ex-dividend from today.

Ci Resources is rewarding shareholders with a total of 3 cents in dividends per share for CY21, after growing its net profit after tax (NPAT) a phenomenal 21,137% year over year to $4,600 million as shown in its preliminary FY21 report.

The earnings' strength has helped Ci reinstate its final dividend after temporarily suspending the full program in FY20.

Despite the dividend restart, its payment to shareholders has crept down from 11 cents per share in FY17.

At the current market price, Ci Resources has a trailing 12-month dividend yield of 1.67%, and will trade on a forward yield of 0.8%.

PTB Group Ltd (ASX: PTB)

PTB Group, which specialises in turboprop engines for the aviation industry, paid $1.55 million in dividends during the financial year.

It is set to pay a 2.5 cents per share final dividend to shareholders, bringing its total FY21 dividend to 5 cents per share.

The company targets a dividend payout ratio of 30% to 50% of NPAT and was able to do so on its FY21 earnings results.

PTB Group's dividend decision comes as little surprise after it gained a record 182% year on year jump in profit before income tax (PBIT) to over $16.6 billion for the year.

PTB also saw a record result in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $22.7 million, up 100% on the year. The company ended the quarter with a record cash balance of around $20 million.

As such, PTB Group's shareholders will enjoy the 2.5 cents per share dividend payment into their brokerage accounts on 29 October as well.

Westgold Resources Ltd (ASX: WGX)

One other ASX resources share that is going ex-dividend today is West Australian gold mining company Westgold Resources.

The gold specialist, with a current market capitalisation of more than $708 million, marks its maiden dividend payment of 2 cents per share after going ex-dividend today.

Westgold is awarding shareholders the payout after gaining an FY21 revenue result of $517 million, which helped NPAT grow 122% year over year to around $77 million.

As this is Westgold's first dividend ever, the board took a "pragmatic view" in assigning the payment, after the company's impressive earnings figures.

Importantly, Westgold's dividend is unfranked, meaning there may be tax implications that investors should familiarise themselves with.

Shareholders will realise Westgold's inaugural dividend into their accounts in around 2 weeks time, on 15 October.

These 3 ASX resources shares are all set to pay scheduled dividends into the coming weeks.

The post These 3 ASX resources shares are going ex-dividend today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Over 19 years that turns a $10,000 jet ski in to an $11,641,046 private yacht.

Today, Greenblatt has pivoted 180 degrees from his origins in special situations. He is now managing over $5 billion with a quantitative value approach that is based on an expansion of his famous Magic Formula.

The premise of the Magic Formula is simple: buy good companies at a cheap price. Quality is measured by return on capital employed, while cheapness is measured by the earnings yield (EBIT/Enterprise Value).

Applying this test to the Australian market, and filtering out financials we arrive at the following list.

(Data Source: Capital IQ)

This list will always be full of names that make investors squeamish. There is, after all, a reason that these companies are cheap.

But that is also why Greenblatt advocates a mechanical adoption of the Magic Formula strategy. When we add our own human biases to the process we are more likely to under-perform, not less.

There are two companies within this list that are recent additions to my own portfolio: Vocation (ASX:VET) and Reverse Corp (ASX:REF).

Neither are pretty businesses. Vocation faces a class action lawsuit regarding its disclosure practices, and Reverse Corp's reverse calling 1-800 number faces long term structural decline. The bear case is easy to make for each, but that is the nature of deep value investments.

What matters is the price that we pay for a given level of quality. Reverse Corp's main business may be in structural decline, but with $6 million in cash and expected half year EBITDA of $1.35 million, it doesn't take much to justify the current $12.5 million valuation.

Following a mechanical quantitative-value approach empowers us to avoid the gag-reflex that these type of companies typically engender.

I back tested this approach over the past 12 months. The results were encouraging. The December 2013 portfolio of 30 companies is up 8.01% for the year, compared with the All Ordinaries which is down -1.07%.

However it must be noted that this back test is subject to survivorship bias. I have taken a list of the 2,144 companies that currently make up the ASX and then selected based on what their rankings would have been a year ago. This excludes any companies that would have been selected a year ago but which have since stopped trading under that name (bankruptcy, reverse listing etc).

I will be revisiting this list throughout 2015 to see how it is doing, and  re-balancing the portfolio. I am also looking at a couple of ways to tweak the algorithm and underlying data to better target what Greenblatt is reaching for.

It is easy for us to dismiss the Magic Formula as too simple to be taken seriously. But with one of the world's all time greatest investors now managing over $5 billion using a modified version of this strategy, it's about time the Magic Formula gets the attention it deserves.

The post 30 Aussie Magic Formula Picks for 2015 appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Mackenzie's reasoning is pretty simple. Fewer farmers and a corresponding requirement for increased efficiency of remaining farms to produce higher yields ultimately means more demand for fertiliser. BHP has in turn positioned itself for the food boom through the addition of the commodity potash – a key ingredient in fertiliser.

Sometimes the "simple" ideas can be the best. Here are four companies which could be great ways to ride this food super-cycle theme:

1)      BHP Billiton acquired rights to explore in the Saskatchewan potash basin in Canada. It's highly prospective land and could act as a platform for a significant and scalable potash business for BHP.

2)      Incitec Pivot Limited (ASX: IPL) is a key supplier of fertiliser products to Australian farmers. The company boasts a market share of over 50% in Australian agricultural nutrients and includes the operation of a phosphate mine in Queensland and is the only domestic producer of ammonium phosphates and urea.

3)      Nufarm Limited (ASX: NUF) is a well-known brand and Australia's largest manufacturer of crop protection products in Australia. Just as demand for soil nutrients is expected to rise, so too is demand for herbicides, insecticides and fungicides.

4)      CI Resources Limited (ASX: CII) has interests in phosphate assets on Christmas Island off the West Australian coast. CI has been mining and exporting phosphate from the island since 1990.

Foolish takeaway

Agricultural production can be a tough business to invest in and indeed there are surprisingly few ways to gain listed exposure. In any case, arguably a safer way to benefit from the growing global demand for food is via inputs to the supply chain rather than direct production.

The post 4 stocks positioned to grow from the food super cycle appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.