Welcome to DividendScale Capital. You just made a decision that will change your financial trajectory.

What You Get

📚 The Dividend Growth Portfolio Masterclass — 15 lessons across 5 modules taking you from dividend fundamentals to advanced strategies like covered calls and recession-proofing. The course is sequential — complete each lesson before unlocking the next. You'll earn a certificate when you finish.

💬 Investor Community — Direct access to discuss strategies, share watchlists, and get feedback on your portfolio allocation. Use it.

📈 Weekly Portfolio Updates — Analysis, sector breakdowns, and actionable dividend stock ideas posted regularly.

Your First 7 Days

1. Today: Start Module 1. The three foundation lessons take about 45 minutes total.

2. Day 2-3: Complete Module 2 — this is where you build your stock screening system.

3. Day 4-5: Work through Module 3 on DRIP and compounding. Model your own 5-year projection.

4. Day 6-7: Start Module 4 on scaling. By now you should have your screening framework and first watchlist built.

One Rule

This community is for people who execute. Read the lessons, apply the frameworks, share your progress. The investors who get the biggest results are the ones who treat this like a business — because that's exactly what dividend investing is.

Let's build. 💰

Most dividend investors get blindsided by cuts because they only look at yield. Yield tells you what a company pays today — it tells you nothing about whether that payment is sustainable.

After analyzing hundreds of dividend stocks through the lens of real estate investment principles, here are the three metrics that predict dividend cuts before they happen.

1. Payout Ratio Trend (Not Just the Number)

A 60% payout ratio looks safe — until you realize it was 40% two years ago and 50% last year. The direction matters more than the absolute number.

• Declining payout ratio + rising dividend = Best case. The company is growing earnings faster than its dividend. Massive safety margin.

• Stable payout ratio + rising dividend = Healthy. Earnings and dividends growing in lockstep.

• Rising payout ratio + rising dividend = Warning. The company is stretching to maintain its dividend streak. This is where cuts happen.

Think of it like a rental property: if operating expenses are eating a bigger percentage of rent every year, eventually there's no margin left for maintenance — and things break.

2. Free Cash Flow Coverage

Earnings can be manipulated with accounting. Free cash flow cannot. If a company's free cash flow divided by total dividends paid drops below 1.0x, the dividend is being funded by debt or asset sales — not by actual business operations.

Target: FCF coverage of 1.2x or higher. Below 1.0x for two consecutive quarters? That's your exit signal.

This is identical to checking whether a property's actual cash flow (after all real expenses) covers the mortgage. Paper profits don't pay bills.

3. Debt-to-EBITDA Ratio Acceleration

When a company's debt-to-EBITDA ratio starts climbing — especially above 3.5x — the dividend becomes vulnerable. High debt means high interest payments. In a rising rate environment or revenue slowdown, interest costs squeeze out dividend capacity.

Watch for: Debt-to-EBITDA increasing by 0.5x or more within 12 months. That's a company levering up, and the dividend is often the first casualty.

---

These three metrics together have predicted over 80% of the dividend cuts I've tracked over the past decade. The companies that maintain and grow their dividends consistently score well on all three.

If you want the full screening framework — including the 5-metric scorecard, sector allocation model, and DRIP optimization strategies — that's what we teach inside the Dividend Growth Portfolio Masterclass.