Three dividend payers on this week’s calendar all share one deadline: an ex-dividend date of October 9, 2026. That makes Thursday, October 8, the last trading day to buy shares and still collect the next payment. All three pay before October ends. Each one passed a coverage check, but one depends more on its balance sheet than on its earnings.

How the timing works: you have to own the shares before the ex-dividend date to get the payment. The pay date is just the day the cash shows up, so buying once the ex-date passes is too late for this round.

Farmers & Merchants Bancorp (NASDAQ:FMAO) declared a quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share on September 29, up from $0.23 the quarter before. The stock goes ex-dividend October 9 and pays on October 20, which means you have to buy by October 8. At the new rate the dividend annualizes to $1, a forward yield of about 2.8%. The trailing yield is 2.59%.

Earnings per share is the right base for measuring coverage at a bank, because loan and deposit flows distort free cash flow. The $1 forward dividend comes to about 34% of trailing diluted EPS of $2.91. The quarterly payment is about 29% of second-quarter EPS of $0.86, which beat the $0.67 estimate in the most profitable quarter of the bank’s 129-year history. Net income rose 53% year over year to $11.80 million. Net interest margin expanded 26 bps to 3.48%, and net charge-offs were 0.00%.

The higher yield comes from the raise, with the stock holding near its highs. The stock’s 50-day average of $34.56 is close to its 52-week high of $36.12. The previous $0.23 rate marked the bank’s 31st consecutive annual increase.

Johnson Outdoors (NASDAQ:JOUT) pays $0.33 a quarter, or $1.32 a year. At $44.78 a share, that works out to a yield of about 2.9%. The ex-date is October 9 and the payment goes out October 23. The rate has held at $0.33 since at least January 2025.

The quality check matters most for Johnson Outdoors. Trailing diluted EPS is -$0.83, so there is no positive earnings base to calculate a payout ratio against. Fiscal third-quarter GAAP EPS of $1.42 beat the $0.68 estimate, but that figure included a one-time tariff refund of about $15 million. The balance sheet is what covers the dividend.

Paying it costs about $12.2 million a year, against $175.2 million in cash. That is roughly 14 years of payments. Trailing EBITDA of $37.966 million covers the dividend about 3.1 times.

Much of the yield comes from a lower share price. The shares are down 52.74% over five years, from $94.75, and that decline accounts for much of today’s yield. The stock has gained 10.37% over the past year.

National Healthcare Properties (NASDAQ:NHP) declared $0.075 per common share on October 1. The ex-date is October 9, the record date is October 12 and the payment is scheduled for October 16. The ex-date is the one that decides who gets paid, so October 8 is still the last day to buy. At $15.87, the annualized $0.30 yields about 1.9%, the lowest on this list.

For a REIT, the right base is funds from operations (FFO). Second-quarter normalized FFO was $0.18 per diluted share, which puts the payout at about 42%. GAAP EPS was -$0.13, missing the -$0.11 estimate. Same-store cash NOI in the senior housing portfolio rose 20.1%. The company used about $531.3 million in IPO proceeds to cut net leverage from 9.2x to 4.9x, and it raised full-year guidance.

The yield is low because the price has climbed. Shares are up 32.9% since April 22. Only two common dividends have been paid, so the track record is short.

Buying a stock just to catch one payment is a weak strategy on its own. On a May 2026 episode of The Clark Howard Podcast featuring Wes Moss, the point was put simply: when trading dividends short term, “there is really no free lunch,” because the stock usually falls by about the amount of the payout. On coverage, Farmers & Merchants is the best income holding of the three. National Healthcare Properties has comfortable FFO coverage but a short record, and Johnson Outdoors is paying its dividend out of cash until earnings recover (that last pattern is one of the warning signs we flagged in a free guide to dividend traps). Investors who want this round of payments have to own the shares by the close on October 8.

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