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What we track
US-listed stocks only — NYSE, NASDAQ, NYSE American, OTC. Foreign companies are reachable through their US-listed ADRs (Engie → ENGIY, Novo Nordisk → NVO, Alibaba → BABA, Unilever → UL, Toyota → TM). Direct international coverage is on the roadmap.
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How we score
An AI analyst reads each stock's fundamentals and dividend history and writes a short assessment: a score 1–10, a paragraph framing the picture, and three things to watch.
9–10 Strong · 7–8 Solid · 5–6 Double-check · 3–4 Caution · 1–2 Unsustainable
Why an AI rather than a fixed formula: dividend safety is sector-dependent. A 75% payout is alarming for tech, normal for utilities, routine for a business development corporation that's required to distribute most of its income. One formula can't read that context — an analyst can.
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How we validate
AI without validation is a chatbot in a suit. Three checks before a score reaches your watchlist:
- Backtest against real cuts. A curated cohort of US dividend stocks plus every meaningful cut of the past three years. Each name is re-scored at the point in time before its outcome, never in hindsight.
- A second method, in parallel. Every ticker is also scored by a transparent rule-based method. When the two disagree, we look at why.
- Promotion gate. No update ships unless it clears a precision floor on the backtest. We'd rather miss a few cuts than cry wolf.
03
Data + refresh
Fundamentals and dividend data come from a professional-grade financial data provider. Scores refresh daily, most served from cache; when a new filing or dividend event arrives, the analysis re-runs. Dividend cuts themselves are monitored continuously — the alert email goes out the day a reduction is announced.
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Payout ratio
Formula
dividends paid / earnings
What share of earnings goes back as dividends. Pay out more than you earn, and you're funding it with debt or reserves — unsustainable. The healthy range is sector-dependent: 70% is fine for a utility or REIT, stretched for tech, and 90%+ is normal for pass-through structures like BDCs.
05
Cash flow coverage
Formula
cash flow / dividends paid
How many times over the dividend is covered by actual cash. Below 1.0× means the dividend is being funded by debt or reserves, not by the business. Cash flow is closer to real money than reported earnings — companies can show a profit on paper while actually burning cash.
06
Debt to EBITDA
Formula
net debt / EBITDA
How many years of operating earnings it would take to clear the debt. When earnings dip — and they always do eventually — debt service comes before the dividend. Tolerance varies a lot: utilities and REITs can sustainably carry multiples of EBITDA; cyclicals cannot. Doesn't apply to banks (deposits are their inventory, not leverage).
07
Growth streak
Formula
years of consecutive annual dividend increases
Years of consecutive raises. Not a guarantee, but one of the strongest signals of management commitment to the dividend. S&P 500 names with 25+ year streaks are formally called Dividend Aristocrats. One-off special distributions are excluded so a bumper year doesn't look like a decline the year after.
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Reading a report
- Score — 1–10, color-coded by tier.
- Analysis — short analyst paragraph.
- Things to watch — three short observations.
In the Double-check or Caution zone: read the analysis and decide for yourself. The report surfaces the signal — it is never a "sell" instruction.
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Dividend basics
- Dividend
- Cash payment to shareholders. Most US payers do quarterly.
- Ex-date / record date / payment date
- Ex-date is the cutoff — you must own the stock before it. Record date is usually one business day later. Payment lands typically 2–4 weeks after the ex-date.
- Cut / suspension / elimination
- Cut = reduction. Suspension = temporary pause, often a precursor. Elimination = stops entirely. We alert on all three.
- Yield
- Annual dividend ÷ share price. We don't score on yield — high yield is often a symptom of a falling share price, not safety.
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Why sector context matters
A 70% payout is comfortable for a utility, routine for a REIT, expected for a tobacco company, and concerning for a software business. Utilities and REITs can carry more debt than the average company because their cash flows are stable. BDCs are tax-required to distribute 90%+ of income, so very high payouts are normal there. Banks look heavily indebted on paper but deposits are their inventory, not leverage. One rubric across all of them would either over-flag the safe ones or under-flag the risky.
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What our method can't detect
Most cuts are preceded by months of fundamentals deterioration — that we catch. Three categories that leave no trail in financials:
- External shocks. COVID-19, a regulatory action, an oil price crash. Arrives without prior warning in the data.
- Structural events. Spinoffs and major pivots can reset the dividend base — 3M's 2024 Solventum spinoff is a recent example. The decision doesn't show in trailing fundamentals.
- Narrative signals. We read financials, not earnings calls or press releases. If management hints at "evaluating the distribution," it takes one or more quarters to flow through.
Use the score as one signal among several. For cyclical names or obvious strategic transitions, pair it with a read of recent earnings commentary.
Questions? Tell us.
Our scores can be wrong. They are based on public financial data which may be incomplete, outdated, or misleading. Score updates may also lag company announcements by a few days. Use the score as one signal among many — not the only one. This service provides information, not investment advice; we are not a licensed financial advisor.