Pieter Slegers — Actionable insights — 26 Dividend Stocks for 2026

1. Choose the strategy from the goal, not from the market

The repeatable method

State what the money is for before choosing what to own: accumulation, preservation, or replacing a salary.
Map each goal to a different portfolio shape, and accept that they are not interchangeable.
Define the finish line in cash terms — the annual income that covers your expenses — so progress is measurable.
Keep the books separate. A compounding portfolio judged on its yield, or an income portfolio judged on total return, will be mismanaged.

Here: "Getting Rich: small quality companies that are growing very quickly. Staying Rich: established quality stocks that are still growing attractively. Living Rich: quality companies paying an attractive dividend… The goal of Living Rich is simple: build a portfolio that generates enough dividend income to cover your expenses. When you can do that, you've achieved financial freedom." The three map onto three separate products in this archive — Tiny Titans, the main Portfolio, and Compounding Dividends.

Watch for

Reaching for yield because the number is satisfying rather than because you need the income now. A 40-year-old accumulating does not need an 11% payout.
Two of the twenty-one names undermining the premise — CTAS at 0.9% and ADBE with no dividend at all. Good businesses, wrong list.

2. Screen on total cash returned, not on the dividend

The repeatable method

Add the dividend yield to the net buyback yield to get shareholder yield, and rank on that.
Verify the buyback with the change in share count, not with the money spent or the programme announced.
Prefer the mix the business and its tax situation suit — buybacks compound untaxed, dividends pay bills.
Where you need spendable income specifically, note that a buyback does not pay a bill, and size accordingly.

Here: the list quietly abandons its own criterion for ADBE, which is entered on "Buyback Yield: 8.9%" with no dividend line — "reducing their share count by over 6% in 2025 alone." The same logic supports HRB, which "bought back nearly 47% of shares outstanding since 2016" on a 3.9% dividend, and WEN, where "between a high dividend yield and consistent buybacks, the company is focused on returning cash to owners."

Watch for

Buybacks funded with debt at the top of a cycle. Check net debt alongside share count.
An 8.9% buyback yield presented as equivalent to an 8.9% dividend in a list whose stated purpose is covering expenses.

3. Test income durability at the lease or contract, not at the company

The repeatable method

Find the document that actually produces the cash: the lease, the supply contract, the franchise agreement.
Read three things off it — who pays the costs, how long it runs, and how the price moves with inflation.
Ask what the tenant or customer loses by leaving. Where the asset is embedded in their operations, the cash flow is durable regardless of their credit.
Prefer a contract that has already been stress-tested in public over one that models well.

Here, four contract shapes in one list. VICI: "triple-net leases, meaning the tenant pays for taxes, insurance, and maintenance… their tenants paid 100% of their rent throughout the COVID-19 lockdowns" plus "annual rent escalators tied to inflation" — and the embedding test in five words, "You can't move a casino." APD: "most of their revenue is secured via 15-to-20-year 'take-or-pay' contracts." ARG.PA: "most of their leases include indexation clauses." EXR: the opposite end — "storage leases are usually month-to-month, they can adjust pricing much faster."

Watch for

The short-lease advantage cutting both ways. Month-to-month reprices up in inflation and down in a recession.
Concentration behind a durable lease. A triple-net REIT with one dominant tenant has credit risk, not property risk.

4. Before buying anything off an income screen, supply the four numbers it omits

The repeatable method

Payout ratio, on free cash flow rather than earnings.
Dividend growth over five and ten years, and whether it was ever cut.
Net debt and the maturity schedule, because a leveraged payer's dividend is the first thing refinancing takes.
The valuation — a yield is a price statement, so a high one is either an opportunity or the market's forecast of a cut.

Here, the gap is total: across twenty-one names the only quantitative field is the current yield. The two highest carry the least support — LYB at 11.2%, a commodity chemical producer defended on US gas feedstock and "some of its lowest valuations in years", and LGEN.L at 8.1% on "a massive free cash flow of GBP 4+ billion". The single payout-ratio reference in the entire list is qualitative: ARG.PA has "a conservative payout ratio."

Watch for

A yield "near historical highs" described as a valuation argument. It is the same fact as the price being near historical lows — which needs explaining, not celebrating.
Cyclical earnings behind a fixed payout. An 11% yield in polyolefins is a bet on the chemical cycle.

5. Force every name onto a one-line moat, and reject the ones that cannot be written

The repeatable method

Write the barrier in a single sentence a non-specialist can check.
Prefer barriers that are physical, legal or economic — an asset that cannot be rebuilt, a licence that cannot be obtained, a cost the customer barely notices.
Reject "strong brand" and "scale" unless you can say what specifically they prevent a competitor from doing.
Then ask whether the barrier protects the dividend, not just the revenue.

Here, the list's best feature. CNR.TO: "You cannot build a new railroad." VICI: "You can't move a casino." PAG: "Dealerships are protected by state laws that limit competition, creating a regional monopoly" — a legal moat, with the profit sitting in service and parts rather than in car sales. APD: gases are "a tiny fraction of a customer's total cost but are vital for production", the same low-cost-share test used for Diploma. CTAS: route density — the second product on an existing stop is almost pure margin.

Watch for

Moats stated but not sized. Route density and regional monopoly are real; neither is quantified anywhere here.
A legal moat that a legislature can remove. State franchise laws protecting dealers are exactly that.

6. Write the obvious threat next to every income name, especially when the source omits it

The repeatable method

For each holding, name the one development that would break the payout — technological, regulatory, demographic or cyclical.
Check whether the write-up you are reading addresses it. Silence on an obvious risk is information about the write-up.
Size the exposure: what share of revenue sits in front of that threat.
Set a monitoring trigger for it, since income holdings are otherwise reviewed too rarely.

Here, six threats go unmentioned. AI on HRB's assisted tax preparation; GLP-1 drugs on MDLZ's snacks and DRI's casual dining; cocoa input costs at Mondelez; political and regulatory pressure on institutional single-family landlords at INVH; the chemical cycle behind LYB's 11.2%; and interest rates across five property vehicles. The list's own defensive line for General Mills is the one place a threat surfaces at all, and only implicitly — "targeting 25% of 2026 sales from new products to prevent consumers from switching to generic store brands."

Watch for

A guest-written screen published as a teaser, with the top five withheld. The incentive is to interest, not to caveat.
Sector concentration hiding inside a diversified-looking list — five of twenty-one here are rate-sensitive property vehicles.

Methods distilled from the archived Compounding Quality post for personal study. The underlying list is the work of TJ Terwilliger for Compounding Dividends. Not investment advice.