I think too many investors trade stocks simply because they can, rather than because they should. If you try to finesse the purchase price too much, oftentimes you ll never buy the stock because it rallies away from your target price. Don t worry so much that you cannot buy stock in dividend reinvestment plans at a precise price. If it s a good stock and you re investing for the long term, it shouldn t matter. A This is a timely question since I recently sold one of my dividend reinvestment plans.
Most DRIPs allow investors to sell stock directly from the plans.
Companies may require DRIP participants to notify the plan in writing with their sell instructions. However, a number of companies, such as Browning-Ferris, allow DRIP participants to sell their shares via the telephone. When I purchased the initial shares I needed to join the DRIP, the broker sent me the stock certificate representing those initial shares. Once I joined the DRIP, I was reinvesting the dividends on all my shares, both the shares I held in the plan as well as shares I held in certificate form. If I called to sell my DRIP shares, however, the firm would have sold the shares held in the plan but wouldn t have sold the shares I held in certificate form.