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The 10-Year Dividend Test: Screening for Sustainable Annual Increases

If you’re serious about dividend growth investing — not the flashy “yield-chasing because it feels productive” version, but the disciplined, compounding-machine version — then you eventually run into a hard truth: Anyone can raise a dividend once. Twice? Still easy. Three years? Respectable. Ten straight years? Now we’re talking about durability. The 10-Year Dividend Test isn’t a meme. It’s not a buzzword. It’s a filter — and a surprisingly ruthless one. It’s designed to answer one question: Can this company raise its dividend through multiple economic cycles without breaking character? Because anyone can look brilliant in sunshine. The real test is whether they can keep paying you more when it rains. Let’s build this framework properly. Why Ten Years Matters Ten years is long enough to include stress. In most decades you’ll get: At least one recession scare One market correction Sector rotation Margin compression Interest rate changes Political or regul...
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The Dividend Growth Imperative: Capital Discipline in Mature Enterprises

Alright. Let’s talk about something that doesn’t trend on TikTok, doesn’t spark cable-news debates, and doesn’t come with a dopamine hit every five minutes: Capital discipline. Specifically — the kind that shows up in mature companies that commit to growing dividends year after year like it’s a sacred oath. Because behind every “boring” dividend growth stock is a story about management restraint. And restraint is wildly underrated in modern capitalism. Welcome to The Dividend Growth Imperative: Capital Discipline in Mature Enterprises. The Dividend Growth Imperative: Capital Discipline in Mature Enterprises In a market obsessed with moonshots, disruption, and the next AI-fueled hyper-growth narrative, dividend growth investing can feel… unfashionable. No rocket emojis. No “10x in 18 months.” No dramatic earnings call plot twists. Just steady, annual increases. Yawn? Not quite. Because if you look closely, dividend growth isn’t boring. It’s a signal. A flashing neon sign t...

Markets Under Constraint: Investing in an Era of Policy Intervention

There was a time—gather round, children—when investors pretended markets were natural ecosystems. Supply met demand. Price discovered value. Central banks gently adjusted interest rates like thermostat managers with graduate degrees. That time is over. We now live in an era where policy doesn’t just influence markets—it inhabits them. It builds scaffolding, erects guardrails, occasionally swings a sledgehammer, and then sends a press release explaining why gravity is optional. Welcome to investing under constraint. This isn’t a doom-and-gloom piece. It’s not a lament for some mythical free-market Eden that never quite existed. It’s an acknowledgment that today’s investing landscape operates inside a policy framework that is tighter, more interventionist, and more politically charged than at any point in recent decades. And if you don’t understand that constraint? You’re not investing. You’re guessing. The Age of Intervention Is Not Temporary Let’s be clear: policy interventi...

Inflation-Resilient Business Models (Or: How to Make Money While the Dollar Loses Its Mind)

Inflation is the financial equivalent of that one friend who eats off your plate and insists it’s “just a bite.” It doesn’t show up dramatically at first. It’s subtle. Prices nudge upward. Gas creeps. Groceries rise like bread dough with ambition. Then one day you’re staring at a receipt thinking, “When did eggs become a luxury good?” For consumers, inflation is irritating. For businesses, it’s existential. Margins shrink. Input costs rise. Labor demands increase. Customers become price-sensitive and moody. Forecasting turns into a guessing game. But here’s the twist: some business models don’t just survive inflation. They thrive in it. Let’s unpack what makes certain companies inflation-resilient—and why the structure of a business often matters more than the headline growth rate when prices start running hot. First, What Inflation Actually Does to a Business Inflation doesn’t just raise costs. It tests leverage—operational leverage, pricing leverage, and psychological levera...