Covered, compounding. A 0.87% yield on a 13.91% payout is comfortably covered, and the rate keeps rising — $1.00 a quarter after the late-2025 raise from $0.91. The yield looks small only because the price has run; most of MPC's capital return runs through buybacks.
Key risk: Refining margins — crack spreads drive MPC's earnings, and they swing hard with crude and product markets. The payout is a small slice of earnings today, but a margin collapse is what would test it.
Changes if: The payout pushes well past 13.91% on a refining-margin downturn, or the board holds the rate flat after four years of raises.
- ✓Payout-coverage check: 13.91% trailing payout ratio — comfortably covered.
- ✓Yield check: 0.87% indicated — $1.00/qtr × 4 at the $457.22 close on Oct. 23, 2026. Real yield, but modest: most of MPC's return of capital runs through buybacks.
- ✓Dividend growth check: Raised to $1.00 in late 2025 from $0.91 — annual increases in each of the last four years.
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.