I am sure that you’ve heard Costco Wholesale (COST) announced a special dividend of $7.00 per share, plus an additional increase of $0.05 to its regular quarterly dividend. The special $7.00 one time cash payment will be paid on May 26th, to those who are on record as owning shares on May 8th, 2017. What do we expect to happen when a special dividend is paid? Well, we expect the COST share price to fall -$7.00 to reflect the $7.00 one time payment. So, is this a Free Money investment if I were to buy an Out of the Money or At-the Money put option? Since the stock is going to fall the put would have to gain in price, correct? Even though I did not receive the dividend, my put would still gain and I would have a nice, juicy, leveraged profit…right? Not quite. In fact, not at all….