What Are Corporate Actions? (Dividends, Splits, Bonus & More)
A corporate action is any event initiated by a company that brings a change to its shares or affects its shareholders directly. If you own a stock, corporate actions are the events that change what you hold or what you receive.
The main types
- Dividend — a cash payout of profits per share.
- Stock split — each share divided into more, at a lower price.
- Bonus issue — free extra shares from reserves.
- Rights issue — the right to buy new shares at a discount, in proportion to your holding.
- Buyback — the company repurchases its own shares from the market.
The dates that matter
Most corporate actions hinge on two dates. The record date is when you must be on the company's books to be eligible. The ex-date is the first day the stock trades without the entitlement — under India's T+1 settlement, the ex-date is typically one business day before the record date. Buy on or after the ex-date and you don't get that dividend, bonus, or right.
Why they matter for data
Splits and bonus issues change the share price without changing value, so price history must be adjusted to stay continuous — see adjusted close. You can fetch a company's full corporate-action history (with ex-dates) from the GET /v1/corporate-actions endpoint — details in the API reference.