ACCRUED DIVIDENDS, the amount of the dividend on a stock which may be presumed to have been earned during the period between the last dividend payment and a later stipulated date. Of course such an accrual of dividend is a mere presumption since dividends are necessarily uncertain until at the end of a dividend period it has been ascertained that there is a surplus from which to pay one, and it has been duly declared. It is quite unusual to sell stock for a certain price "plus accrued dividends," although in the cases of stock with dividend guaranteed (see STOCK) or in cases of preferred stock of companies in which the dividend is practically certain, it is sometimes done. Stocks are not sold "with accrued dividend" on organized exchanges, although it is the common custom to sell bonds "with accrued interest" (q.v.). The term accrued dividend must not be understood to carry intimation that dividends are in arrears (q.v.), that idea being conveyed by the expression "cumulated dividend" or "accumulated dividend" (q.v.). (See DIVIDEND.) (J. H. B.)