Beginner question about Rakuten Securities

[AndyN]

Hi everyone!
I'm new to investments and I just opened a NISA account with Rakuten Securities last month. So far I've only been investing a small amount to Nikkei 225 and VOO.
I'm sorry about my beginner questions, but I still don't understand how the dividend actually works. Will I get dividends for each stocks that I have? And when will I get it? I see that the US stocks (including indexes) have the dividend amount information but not the dividend payment date, but the Japanese indexes say that the dividend is 0.00. Does that mean that I can't get dividends from Japanese indexes?
And how can I find out about a stock's investing fee?
Can anyone help explain these?
Thank you!

[RetireJapan]

I'm sorry about my beginner questions, but I still don't understand how the dividend actually works. Will I get dividends for each stocks that I have? And when will I get it? I see that the US stocks (including indexes) have the dividend amount information but not the dividend payment date, but the Japanese indexes say that the dividend is 0.00. Does that mean that I can't get dividends from Japanese indexes?
And how can I find out about a stock's investing fee?
Can anyone help explain these?
Thank you!

Hi Andy

Welcome to the RJ forum! I'll try to answer those questions quickly, but hopefully other people will chime in too

Some stocks/ETFs/mutual funds pay dividends, some don't.
With ETFs, sometimes you can choose between accumulation (ACC) ETFs that reinvest dividends and don't pay them out, and distribution (DIS) ones that pay out the dividends.
The dividend distribution dates are set by each stock/ETF/mutual fund. Some pay annually, some biannually, quarterly, monthly.
With mutual funds, you can often choose to have them pay out dividends or reinvest them. You do this when you buy the fund.
You can see information about fees in the information page for each fund. Here is an example from Rakuten: https://www.rakuten-sec.co.jp/web/marke ... ?ric=BND.P
You can see the 経費率 is 0.05%.

Hope that helps!

[jcc]

Just to expand a bit on ben's answer:

The ones that are showing 0 dividend payed are reinvesting internally. This means any japanese stocks inside it are reinvested before taxation on dividends and the value is added to the fund price, allowing you to defer taxation to when you sell the fund/etf/whatever. This is a good thing unless you like to have that flow of dividends(this is mostly psychological, as you can really sell a chunk of it at regular intervals if you want the cash flow). It also has a nice advantage in tax-free accounts(like NISA) that it effectively "expands" your tax-free slot.

There's an option to choose to reinvest dividends on many of the funds and whatnot, but this only applies if the fund actually generates dividends. It also reinvests the dividends externally to the fund so you get taxed when they're generated, so the taxation is no longer deferred.

Morningstar.co.jp has a somewhat more complete picture of costs that shows actual costs in addition to the rewards and whatnot collected by fund managers(under the costs tab). I also like this japanese site that calculates and compares them for popular funds: http://shintaro-money.com/index-cost/

[AndyN]

Hi Andy

Welcome to the RJ forum! I'll try to answer those questions quickly, but hopefully other people will chime in too

Some stocks/ETFs/mutual funds pay dividends, some don't.
With ETFs, sometimes you can choose between accumulation (ACC) ETFs that reinvest dividends and don't pay them out, and distribution (DIS) ones that pay out the dividends.
The dividend distribution dates are set by each stock/ETF/mutual fund. Some pay annually, some biannually, quarterly, monthly.
With mutual funds, you can often choose to have them pay out dividends or reinvest them. You do this when you buy the fund.
You can see information about fees in the information page for each fund. Here is an example from Rakuten: https://www.rakuten-sec.co.jp/web/marke ... ?ric=BND.P
You can see the 経費率 is 0.05%.

Hope that helps!

Thank you for the reply and welcome!

About the fees, seems like I can only see that when I'm not logged in. When I see the fund details when logged in, I can't find the 経費率 anywhere.

[AndyN]

Just to expand a bit on ben's answer:

The ones that are showing 0 dividend payed are reinvesting internally. This means any japanese stocks inside it are reinvested before taxation on dividends and the value is added to the fund price, allowing you to defer taxation to when you sell the fund/etf/whatever. This is a good thing unless you like to have that flow of dividends(this is mostly psychological, as you can really sell a chunk of it at regular intervals if you want the cash flow). It also has a nice advantage in tax-free accounts(like NISA) that it effectively "expands" your tax-free slot.

There's an option to choose to reinvest dividends on many of the funds and whatnot, but this only applies if the fund actually generates dividends. It also reinvests the dividends externally to the fund so you get taxed when they're generated, so the taxation is no longer deferred.

Morningstar.co.jp has a somewhat more complete picture of costs that shows actual costs in addition to the rewards and whatnot collected by fund managers(under the costs tab). I also like this japanese site that calculates and compares them for popular funds: http://shintaro-money.com/index-cost/

Thank you for the answer!
I'll check that website!

[RetireJapan]

Thank you for the reply and welcome!

About the fees, seems like I can only see that when I'm not logged in. When I see the fund details when logged in, I can't find the 経費率 anywhere.

If you scroll down the fees are listed on the bottom left on Rakuten:

[Bushiman]

I'm super nOOb at this investing business so please excuse my questions if they really are that simple and I'm missing something...

I was wondering the other day about the dividend distribution dates of my eMaxis Slim funds so had a look on Rakuten and the dates for the next distribution were 4/25 but it said the previous distribution/dividend(?) amount was 0. I checked this year's fund price graph and it went up until the 25th of April this year, then a sharp decline... Are these related? People bought into the fund raising prices, it got to the date of distribution and nothing happened so people sold?
I have my eMaxis Slim funds set to re-invest dividends. I assumed, that meant that any dividends would be used to automatically buy more of that stock for me... Is that right? How else am I supposed to get that magical 'compound interest' engine working if there are no dividends/distributions? On funds where there are no distributions/dividends am I only making money through the hopeful increase in fund price? Selling high after buying low etc.?
(Are distributions/dividends the same thing?! Hahaha!)

Thanks!