Dividends are the part of your return that does not depend on the market’s mood: cash lands in your account whether the multiple expands or not. These metrics measure two things - how big the payout is, and whether it can last. The second question matters more than the first, because a dividend that gets cut takes the stock price down with it.

All figures in the ValueMap screener are trailing twelve months (TTM) unless noted.

Dividend Yield

What it is: The dividend yield: the trailing twelve months of dividends per share divided by today’s share price - the cash return you would collect at the current price if the payout simply repeated. In this screener it is displayed as a percent.

Why value investors care: Between 2% and 4% is the sweet spot for growing payers - enough income to matter, low enough to leave room for reinvestment and raises. Above 6% demands investigation, and above 10% is almost always a trap: either the market is pricing in a cut and the yield is a mirage computed on a doomed payout, or the trailing figure includes a one-off special dividend that will not repeat. It is rarely free money. A high yield is a question, not an answer - the payout ratio and coverage metrics below are where you look for the answer.

Payout Ratio

What it is: The payout ratio: dividends paid divided by net income - the fraction of earnings that goes out the door to shareholders rather than being retained. A 50% payout means half of every dollar earned is mailed to owners and half stays to fund the business.

Why value investors care: Below 40% leaves room to grow the dividend, 40-60% is healthy for a mature payer, above 80% is strained, and above 100% the company pays out more than it earns - effectively borrowing to pay you, which is sustainable only briefly. REITs and MLPs run high by structure, since they are required to distribute most of their income, so judge them by their own sector norms. The caveat is the denominator: a one-time earnings hit can spike the ratio past 100% without the dividend being in any real danger. Check cash flow before panicking.

Dividend and Capex Coverage

What it is: Dividend and capex coverage: operating cash flow divided by the sum of dividends paid and capital expenditure. It skips accounting earnings entirely and asks the real question - does the cash from operations cover both the reinvestment the business needs and the dividend it promises?

Why value investors care: Above 1, the dividend survives without borrowing: the entire obligation, maintenance included, is funded from operations. Below 1, the payout is being financed by debt or asset sales, and something gives eventually - the capex, the dividend, or the balance sheet. This is the single best early-warning metric for dividend cuts, because companies stop covering the payout with cash quarters or years before they announce the cut. Its only weakness is lumpy capex: one heavy investment year can push coverage below 1 without meaning anything structural, so glance at the trend, not one reading.

Dividend/Share

What it is: Dividend per share: total dividends paid over the trailing twelve months divided by shares outstanding - the raw payment in dollars per share, before any comparison to price.

Why value investors care: The level matters less than the trajectory. The Buffett-style test is 5-10 years of uninterrupted growth in this number: a company that has raised it for a decade is telling you something durable about both its cash generation and its management’s promises, and dividend-growth streaks are broken reluctantly, which makes them informative. Screen for the streak, then verify it with the coverage ratio above. The caveat: growth can be manufactured by buybacks - total dividends flat while the share count shrinks still raises the per-share figure. That is fine for you as a holder, but it is not the same signal as growing the actual cash outlay.

Last Dividend

Last Dividend — the most recent dividend payment per share.

What it is: The most recent single per-share payment - an amount in dollars, not a yield, and not an annual total.

Why value investors care: Multiply it by the payment frequency to estimate the forward annual dividend, which can differ meaningfully from the trailing figure after a recent raise or cut. It is also where special dividends show up and distort every yield number downstream. A last dividend wildly out of line with a quarter of the TTM figure means something changed - find out what.