How we calculate

Which stocks and ETFs are covered

• A curated list of Dividend Kings, Dividend Aristocrats and high-yield payers, with their published streaks.
• Every dividend payer in the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400, S&P SmallCap 600 and FTSE 100, plus widely held dividend and income ETFs. Companies that pay no dividend are left out.

Prices and yields update every weekday. Everything else (dividend history, financial statements, analyst ratings) is refreshed for each security about once a week.

Dividend streaks and categories

A streak is the number of consecutive years in which a company’s dividends per share rose, following the convention S&P uses for its Dividend Aristocrats: each calendar year is compared with the year before. We compare the average regular payment per year rather than the raw total, so a payment that falls just before or after New Year doesn’t look like a cut, and we leave out one-off special dividends.

• Dividend King: 50+ years of increases.
• Dividend Aristocrat: members of the S&P Dividend Aristocrats list (25+ years).
• Dividend Champion: 25+ years; Contender: 10–24; Challenger: 5–9.
• Dividend Payer: pays a dividend with a shorter or broken streak. Dividend ETF: a fund.

For companies outside the curated list, streaks are counted from Yahoo Finance’s dividend history. Where that history is incomplete or affected by spin-offs, the count can come out lower than the official one; the method is built to err on that side. Curated streaks keep their published value unless dividends per share fell in the last six years, in which case the company page says so and the streak is counted from then.

Financial health score (0–100)

Shown on every dividend company. It is a dividend-safety read-out built from the company’s own reported numbers. Each company starts at 70, then:

• Payout ratio (dividends as a share of earnings): above 100% −28; above 80% −15; above 60% −5; 60% or less +12.
• Debt to equity: above 3× −18; above 1.5× −8; 1.5× or less +8.
• Dividend yield: above 12% −16 (often a sign the market expects a cut); above 8% −7.
• Return on equity: negative −10; 15% or more +8.
• Revenue growth: shrinking more than 3% −8; growing 5% or more +5.
• Track record: Dividend King (50+ years of increases) +10; Dividend Aristocrat (25+ years) +6; otherwise 20+ years of increases +4.

ETFs get no score: it reads a single company’s finances, which a fund doesn’t have.

The result is kept between 0 and 100 and labelled Healthy (75+), Stable (60–74), Caution (45–59) or At Risk (below 45). When a company has no live market data, we show No data instead of a score rather than guess.

Risk level for stocks and REITs

A simple points system on four measures of dividend safety:

• Payout ratio above 90%: 2 points; above 70%: 1 point.
• Debt to equity above 200%: 2 points; above 100%: 1 point.
• Beta (price swings compared with the market) above 1.2: 2 points; above 0.9: 1 point.
• Fewer than 25 years of dividend increases: 1 point.

4 or more points is High, 2–3 is Medium, 0–1 is Low.

Risk level for bonds

Taken from the issuer’s S&P credit rating: AAA to AA− is Low, A+ to BBB− is Medium, BB+ and below is High. Where we hold no verified rating (shown as NR) the level is Medium. The ratings themselves are the agencies’; we never estimate one.

Risk level for index funds

Set by what the fund holds: a broad bond index is low; a broad stock index of developed markets (S&P 500, MSCI World, FTSE All-World) is medium; emerging markets, small companies, a narrow index such as the Nasdaq-100, or a single smaller market such as Romania's BET is high.

Company activity and the “Leave out” filters

The Activity column on the Investments page shows each company's main industry as classified by Yahoo Finance. Five flags are set from that industry alone: Tobacco (tobacco), Alcohol (brewers, wineries and distilleries), Fossil fuels (oil and gas, thermal and coking coal), Gambling (gambling, resorts and casinos) and Aerospace & defence. A company can still have smaller activities in these areas that its main industry doesn't show, and a broad index fund holds companies of every kind. Funds marked ESG-screened follow an index with its own exclusions, set by the index provider. The flags are facts to help you choose, not a judgement or a rating.

Analyst consensus

Each analyst rating gets a score (Strong Buy 5, Buy 4, Hold 3, Sell 2, Strong Sell 1) and we average them: 4.5 or more is Strong Buy, 3.5 or more Buy, 2.5 or more Hold, 1.5 or more Sell, otherwise Strong Sell. “Bullish sentiment” is the share of Buy and Strong Buy ratings. The price-target change compares the average analyst target with the current price.

Fair-value range (Valuation tab)

A dividend discount model: next year’s dividend divided by the difference between a 10% required return and an expected growth rate. Growth is 60% of the company’s five-year dividend growth (3% when unknown), capped at 8%. We show the result as a range of ±20%. It is a rough yardstick for income investors, not a price target or a prediction.

Yields

• Dividend yield: the annual dividend divided by the current share price.
• Bond yield: depending on the source, the official daily yield published by a central bank or treasury, or an official monthly average. Each bond’s page says which, and the date it applies to. A bond no official, free source covers isn’t listed. See data sources.

Calculators

The FI number uses the 4% rule: 25 times your yearly spending. Projections compound the return rate you choose. They are illustrations of your own assumptions, not forecasts.

Watchlist alerts and the newsletter

With every weekday data update we compare today's data with the previous update:

• Ex-dividend dates: a stock appears once its announced ex-dividend date is a week or less away. We never estimate a date that hasn't been announced.
• Dividend raises and cuts: a new payment in the dividend history is compared with the previous regular payment for companies that pay four or more times a year, and with the same payment a year earlier for those paying once or twice (so an interim isn't compared with a final). We report changes of 0.1% or more for US and Canadian listings, and of 3% or more elsewhere, where amounts converted from the company's own currency move with exchange rates. A payment more than 1.5 times the usual amount is reported as a special dividend. ETFs are left out, as their payouts vary with what their holdings pay.
• Bond yields: a move of 0.25 percentage points or more since the last move we reported.

Our data picks up a new dividend on its ex-dividend date, which can be some days after the company announced it. The weekly newsletter is written from the same data and every issue is published on the newsletter page.

What we never do

• Fill a missing figure with an estimate. Missing data shows as “—”, “NR” or “No data”.
• Replace a figure with an older one, or publish a figure that jumped implausibly overnight.
• Tell you what to buy or sell. See our financial disclaimer.