Continuity, payout ratio, yield and growth in one score: identify reliable payers, avoid dividend traps, automated and refreshed daily.
Save the strategy and StockScorer checks its rules for you every day. You'll get a heads-up whenever a stock crosses the upper or lower score threshold.
Once enough history is available, the backtest chart for this strategy will appear here.
Every stock runs through the same disclosed rules. The points add up to a score, traceable down to the individual rule.
Each rule checks a metric against a threshold, for example ROE above 15 %.
You decide how much each rule counts: from +1 to +3 or −1 to −3.
The sum is the score. Above the upper threshold: a high match with the profile.
These terms describe only the match with the criteria, not a recommendation to buy or sell.
Years without a cut are the hardest evidence of a resilient payout policy.
The payout ratio based on free cash flow exposes substance payers.
A yield above 1% ensures there is a substantive distribution at all.
Five-year growth above 5% per year offsets inflation: shrinkage costs points.
For income investors with a long horizon who value predictable distributions over maximum price upside, without falling for the classic dividend trap.
A high dividend yield alone is no mark of quality. Often it is merely the result of a collapsed share price. The 4-factor check therefore tests the magic square of dividend quality, as popularised by Christian W. Röhl with his DividendenAdel approach: Has the dividend gone uncut for years? Is it covered by free cash flow (25–75% payout)? Does it offer a real base yield? And is it growing faster than inflation? Substance payers (companies funding their dividend from the balance sheet or on credit) are punished hard.
Continuity: a dividend uncut for at least ten years earns +2 points, five to nine years +1. Payout ratio: if the dividend sum amounts to 25–75% of free cash flow, the balance counts as healthy (+1); 75–90% leaves little buffer (−1); from 90% or with negative cash flow it is substance distribution (−2). On top come +1 for a yield above 1% and +1 for dividend growth above 5% per year; a shrinking payout costs 2 points.
The score ranges from −4 to +5; the upper threshold is 4 points (large caps: 3). A high match therefore demands continuity AND coverage: yield alone is never enough.
Continuity: years without a dividend cut (≥ 10 years: +2, 5–9 years: +1).
Payout ratio (FCF basis): 25–75% ideal (+1), 75–90% critical (−1), from 90% or negative: dividend trap (−2).
Yield: above 1.0% (+1), as a minimum return, not a maximisation target.
Growth: five-year CAGR above 5% (+1), shrinking dividend (−2).
The square's strength: it punishes exactly the constellation that classic dividend rankings reward, optically high yields created only by falling prices or uncovered payouts.
Calculation note: the FCF payout ratio is approximated from dividend yield × market capitalisation relative to free cash flow. For names whose trading and reporting currencies differ, the ratio can be slightly distorted. Continuity measures years without a cut, the even stricter view of “years with an increase” gets its own strategy.
For income investors seeking dividend quality rather than dividend size, as a core strategy or as a filter over their own watchlist.