Rising-rate dividend screen — modest yield, strong compounding. A 2.03% trailing yield from large- and mid-cap developed-market stocks screened on dividend yield, payout ratio, dividend growth and a positive correlation to rising 10-year U.S. Treasury yields, at a 0.15% expense ratio. The trailing twelve months paid $1.40 a share — $0.329 in December 2025, $0.350 in March 2026, $0.410 in June 2026 and $0.307 in September 2026 — at the $68.82 close on October 23, 2026, up from $1.35 in calendar 2025. The trap check passes decisively: the price is up about 174% over ten years and total return runs about 13.8% annualised over ten years, so distributions have been paid on top of strong growth, not carved out of principal.
Key risk: A correlation bet, not a yield play — the screen's edge is its tilt toward stocks that have risen with Treasury yields, so if rates fall for a long stretch the tilt offers no extra help, and at 2.03% the cash today is modest: this card pays a holder mainly through compounding, not through income.
Changes if: Trailing-twelve-month distributions fall for two consecutive quarters, or the expense ratio rises materially. Quarterly lumpiness alone is not a tripwire — the trailing total is.
- !Yield check: 2.03% trailing — $1.40 of distributions over the trailing twelve months (December 2025 $0.329, March 2026 $0.350, June 2026 $0.410, September 2026 $0.307) at the $68.82 close on October 23, 2026. Modest as income, but the total has risen from $1.35 in 2025 and $1.34 in 2024 rather than shrinking.
- ✓Expense check: 0.15% a year is low for a screened dividend fund — two and a half times SCHD's 0.06%, but it consumes only about a fourteenth of the trailing yield, so the fee is not the story here.
- ✓Trap check — distribution vs. total return: Passed — the price is up about 174% over ten years and total return is about 13.8% annualised over ten years with about 19% over the past year despite roughly 2% annual distributions: the distributions were paid on top of growth, not carved out of principal, and no return-of-capital funding was indicated.
What this grade doesn't say: It screens the dividend only — covered, real, compounding. It says nothing about valuation or price: a well-covered payer can still be overpriced, and its price can still fall.