Many publicly traded companies, and some privately held ones, provide a dividend feature to their stock. Stock shares trade fluidly on public markets, such that the state of share ownership differs at the end of each trading day, and any given share may have a series of various owners over time. When declaring a dividend, a company will designate a record date for the dividend. The practical rules of the financial system determine precisely one of the owners to receive the dividend payment, namely the "owner of record" who owned the share(s) at the end of the trading day on the record date. The company thus resolves payment to the share owner identified on the company's share register as of the record date. Since the process of settlement involves some days of delay, stock exchanges set an earlier date, known as the "ex-dividend" date (typically the business day prior to the record date) to synchronize the time for this processing. Thus the key date for a stock purchase is the ex-dividend date: a purchase on that date (or after) will be "ex" (outside, without right to) the dividend.