ex-date and arbitrage

today is hai-o ex-date for its 32cent dividend. as such it has dropped to RM7.22

prior to this i have being thinking whether i should sell out before the ex-date and after it drop down buy in again. I would be able to earn an arbitrage of the drop. Actually not sure if it is called arbitrage at all.

for this case, if i sell out at RM7.99, and buy in again now at RM7.22, and presuming my buy in price is RM7.5 previously, i would earn RM0.49 at least, which is higher than the RM0.32 dividend. the difference between is 2.26% earning over RM7.5 purchase price. However, after minus off the extra brokerage involved, it doesn't sounds that great. So, the conclusion since i had wanted to hold it long term anyway, it would be better not to target this arbitrage. After all, it won't 100% drop after ex-date.

the point that i should be considering is still the business earning of Haio. Look at the financial results below. EPS has been increasing 28% in the last quarter compare to previous quarter.
This has the effect to bring down PE over long term. So this is one reason i hold the stock.

Recent Financial Results

Announcement Date		Financial Yr. End		Qtr	Period End		Revenue RM '000		Profit/Lost RM'000		EPS		Amended
29-Sep-09		30-Apr-10		1	31-Jul-09		148,572		18,519		22.17		-
26-Jun-09		30-Apr-09		4	30-Apr-09		132,845		14,734		17.80		-
27-Mar-09		30-Apr-09		3	31-Jan-09		102,129		12,409		14.64		-
18-Dec-08		30-Apr-09		2	31-Oct-08		87,292		11,152		13.06		-

Secondly, even the dividend is improving over the years. holding this would be good enough

Company

Particulars

Date announced

Ex-Date

To those registered by

To be paid on

Total for yr so far

Total for prev yr

HAIO	Final 32¢	02-Oct-09	19-Nov-09	23-Nov-09	07-Dec-09	42¢	40¢
	Interim 10¢	26-Feb-09	12-Mar-09	16-Mar-09	26-Mar-09	10¢	38.35¢
	Final 32¢	03-Oct-08	27-Nov-08	01-Dec-08	10-Dec-08	40¢	13¢
	Interim 8¢	19-Feb-08	12-Mar-08	14-Mar-08	28-Mar-08	8¢	18¢
	First & Final 6¢	04-Oct-07	29-Nov-07	01-Dec-07	12-Dec-07	6¢	5¢
	Interim 5¢ TE	15-Jan-07	23-Feb-07	27-Feb-07	13-Mar-07	5¢	8¢
	Final 8¢	27-Sep-06	29-Nov-06	01-Dec-06	12-Dec-06	8¢	6¢
	First & Final 6¢	04-Oct-05	29-Nov-05	01-Dec-05	12-Dec-05	6¢	5¢
	First & Final 5¢	13-Aug-04	29-Nov-04	01-Dec-04	10-Dec-04	5¢	4¢