Dividend investing glossary

200-day average

The average closing price over the last 200 trading days — a slow gauge of trend. A price below it is often read as a relative discount.

3-year dividend CAGR

The compound annual growth rate of a company's dividend over the last three full years — a shorter-term read on how fast the payout is growing right now, next to the steadier 5-year figure.

5-year dividend CAGR

The compound annual growth rate of a company's dividend over the last five full years — the steady yearly pace at which the payout has grown, smoothing out one-off jumps.

52-week position

Where today's price sits between the 52-week low (0%) and high (100%). Near 100% means the stock is trading close to its yearly high — a momentum signal.

Annualized yield

The premium as a return on the collateral, scaled to a yearly rate over the days the option is held — so a 30-day put and a 90-day call compare on the same footing. A 2% premium over 30 days is roughly a 24%/yr run-rate. Treat it as a comparison aid, not an expectation: a 7-day option paying 0.5% annualizes to 26%, a rate nobody collects 52 times running.

Assets under management (AUM)

The total value of the money a fund manages. A bigger fund is usually more liquid and less likely to be closed or merged away.

Assignment

When the option's buyer exercises it, so the shares change hands at the strike: an assigned put means you buy the shares; an assigned covered call means you sell them. Quantic updates your holding's cost basis automatically.

Benchmark

A broad index fund your own return is measured against, by asking what the same money moved on the same days would have done there instead. Quantic compares against accumulating funds, whose price already includes reinvested dividends, so the comparison is total return on both sides.

Break-even

The price at which a sold option nets zero versus the strike, once the kept premium is spread over the shares. A cash-secured put breaks even that much below the strike (your effective purchase price if assigned); a covered call that much above it.

Cash-secured put

Selling a put while setting aside the cash to buy the shares if you're assigned. You collect a premium up front; if the stock stays above the strike you keep it as income, and if it drops you buy shares you wanted anyway at the strike — effectively a discount, minus the premium.

Chowder number

A dividend-growth screen: the current yield plus the 5-year dividend growth rate. A common rule of thumb wants at least 8% for higher-yield stocks (yield above 3%) or 12% otherwise — a quick gauge of total dividend-return potential.

Commission

What your broker charges to execute a trade. It's small per trade but it's real money, and it counts as part of what the shares cost you — which is why Quantic records the commission on every trade it can read from your statement.

Cost basis (average cost)

What you actually paid for the shares you hold, per share — the money you put in, including the commission, spread across your shares. Buying more at a different price moves it; selling doesn't, because selling doesn't change what the shares you kept cost you. It's the baseline your gain, your yield on cost and any future tax calculation are measured against.

Covered by trades

The share of your portfolio Quantic can measure a return on. A holding whose shares you typed in has no purchase behind it, so counting today's value without the money that bought it would flatter the result. Those holdings are left out of the calculation entirely — import their trades and they join it.

Covered call

Selling a call against shares you already own. You collect a premium as income; if the stock rises above the strike your shares are sold ("called away") at that price. A way to earn extra yield on holdings you'd be happy to trim.

Current ratio

Short-term assets divided by short-term liabilities. Above 1 means a company can cover the coming year's bills from cash and near-cash; below 1 is a liquidity squeeze that can pressure the dividend.

Current yield

A stock's annual dividend divided by today's share price — what a new buyer would earn right now.

DRIP

Dividend reinvestment: automatically using each dividend to buy more shares, compounding your income over time.

Debt-to-equity

Total debt divided by shareholders' equity, as a percentage. 100% means a company owes as much as it's worth to owners; higher means more borrowing — and more of its cash going to lenders before dividends.

Dividend Yield Theory

A valuation idea (Geraldine Weiss): a quality dividend payer is relatively cheap when its yield is near the high end of its own historical range, and expensive near the low end. The implied fair price is the annual dividend divided by the stock's average historical yield.

Dividend doubling time

Roughly how many years until the dividend doubles if it keeps growing at its recent rate, using the Rule of 72 (72 ÷ the growth rate as a percentage). A quick feel for how fast your income compounds — a 6% raiser doubles its payout in about 12 years.

Dividend growth streak

The number of consecutive years a company has raised its dividend. A long streak signals reliability; 25+ years earns the "dividend aristocrat" label.

Dividend per share

The cash a company pays out per share over a year. On a card, "Div" is this annual dividend per share.

Dividend safety

A quick read on how sustainable a payout looks, from the payout ratio, the growth trend and streak, and the yield. "At risk" flags warning signs like paying out more than the company earns — it's a prompt to look closer, not a prediction.

Dividend score

Quantic's 0–10 read on a dividend's quality, blending yield, payout stability and growth. Higher means sturdier — it's information, not a buy signal.

Downside buffer

How far a share can fall before a put you sold is assigned — the gap between today's price and the strike, as a percentage. A wider buffer means less chance of buying the shares, and a smaller premium for waiting. Measured to your break-even instead of the strike, it's the fall you'd absorb before actually losing money.

EBITDA

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation — a rough proxy for the cash a company's core operations throw off, before financing and accounting items. Often weighed against debt to gauge how easily a company can service what it owes.

ECB reference rate

The euro exchange rates the European Central Bank publishes once each working day. EU tax administrations accept them, which is why Quantic's tax report converts foreign dividends and sales at the rate for their own date rather than at today's rate or your broker's. There is no rate on weekends or holidays, so the report uses the most recent one published before that date and tells you which day it used.

EPS (earnings per share)

A company's annual profit divided by its shares — the earnings that back each share you own, and what dividends are ultimately paid from.

ETF

An exchange-traded fund — a single tradeable ticker holding a basket of stocks or bonds, so one purchase gives you the whole basket's diversification, usually at a low cost.

Earnings date

The day a company publishes its results. Prices often move sharply on it, so it matters when you're choosing an option expiry or deciding whether to buy before or after. Until a company confirms the day, providers estimate it from the last quarter and it can shift.

Ex-dividend date

The cut-off day: you must already own the stock before it to receive the next dividend. Buy on or after, and the seller keeps that payment.

Expense ratio (TER)

The yearly fee a fund or ETF charges, as a percentage of what you hold — quietly deducted from returns, so a lower expense ratio leaves more of the yield in your pocket.

FFO payout

For REITs, the share of Funds From Operations (FFO — a REIT's cash earnings, adding depreciation back to net income) paid out as dividends. It's the right coverage gauge for property companies, whose earnings-based payout looks misleadingly high. Comfortably under 100% means the dividend is covered by cash flow.

FIFO (first in, first out)

When you sell part of a holding you bought in several goes, FIFO says you sold the oldest shares first. Most of Europe taxes securities this way, so it decides what those shares cost you and when you acquired them. Quantic carries your holdings at average cost — the better measure of how a position is doing — and uses FIFO only in the tax report, which is why the two can show different figures for the same sale.

Fair value (DDM)

An estimate of what a share is worth based on its dividend: next year's dividend divided by the required return minus the dividend growth rate (the Gordon Growth model). Compared with the price to flag under- or over-valuation; it only applies when growth stays below the required return.

Gross vs. net

Gross is the dividend before tax; net is what actually lands after withholding tax. Quantic tracks both.

ISIN

The twelve-character code that identifies a security worldwide, regardless of which exchange it trades on or what ticker it uses there. Unlike a ticker, it doesn't change when a company renames itself — which is why an import identifies your holdings by ISIN where the file carries one, so a renamed company keeps its dividend history instead of splitting into two positions.

Income smoothing

Choosing holdings so your dividends arrive evenly through the year rather than in a few big months. Most companies pay quarterly on one of three cycles, so a portfolio built without watching the calendar tends to collect heavily in March, June, September and December and very little in between — which matters if you're spending the income rather than reinvesting it.

MCP (connector)

The Model Context Protocol — an open standard that lets an AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini…) securely connect to an app like Quantic and read your data to answer questions. You add Quantic as a "connector" in your assistant, read-only.

Margin of safety

Benjamin Graham's idea of only buying when the price sits a comfortable distance below your fair-value estimate, leaving room for error. Here a stock reads "cheap" when the price is at least 15% below fair value, "expensive" when 15% above, and "fair" in between.

Market cap

Market capitalization: the company's total value on the market — share price times the number of shares. A quick gauge of size: large caps tend to be steadier dividend payers, smaller caps more volatile.

Maximum drawdown

The worst peak-to-trough drop in the share price over the available history — how much you'd have been down if you had bought at the high and held through the low. A plain gauge of how bumpy the ride has been.

Momentum

How strongly a stock's price is trending up — trading above its moving averages, high in its 52-week range, with positive recent returns. A trend read, not a valuation: a stock can have strong momentum and still be expensive.

Money-weighted return

Your portfolio's yearly rate, counting when each euro went in. Money invested just before a good year earns more of it than money added at the end, and this figure says so. It includes dividends received and any sales, and it is the rate that makes what you paid in and what you have now balance out.

Moneyness

Where the current price sits versus the strike. For an option you sold, in-the-money (ITM) means it's heading toward assignment; out-of-the-money (OTM) means it's on track to expire worthless so you keep the premium. Near expiry, an in-the-money option is at real risk of assignment.

Moving average

The average closing price over a rolling window — a smoothed line that cuts through day-to-day noise to show the trend. A shorter window (say 50 days) reacts quickly; a longer one (200 days, or 12 months) is slower and steadier. Price above its average is often read as strength, below as a relative discount.

Option premium

The cash you receive up front for selling an option. For income investors it's a recurring income stream alongside dividends; Quantic counts the net premium (after fees and any buy-back) as received income.

PER (price/earnings)

Price-to-earnings: the share price divided by earnings per share — roughly how many years of today's earnings you're paying for. Lower can mean cheaper, but only compare within the same industry.

Path to freedom

Quantic's projection of when your dividend income could cover your living costs — your dividend-FIRE date.

Payout ratio

The share of earnings paid out as dividends. Low leaves room to grow and absorb shocks; very high can signal a payout that's hard to sustain.

Proceeds

The money a sale actually put in your account: the shares times the price, minus your broker's commission. It's the other half of a realized result — proceeds on one side, what those shares cost you on the other. Note the asymmetry with a purchase: a buying commission is added to what the shares cost, a selling one is taken off what you got.

Quick ratio

Like the current ratio but stricter — it excludes inventory, counting only the most liquid assets against short-term liabilities. A tougher test of whether a company can pay its near-term bills.

Realized result

What a sale actually came to: what you received for the shares, less the commission, less what those shares had cost you. It's called a result rather than a gain because it is just as often negative — selling below your average cost is an ordinary part of investing, not a mistake to hide. Until you sell, a position's rise or fall is unrealized: real on paper, but nothing has happened yet.

Reverse split

The opposite of a split: several shares merged into one, so a 1-for-3 reverse split turns 3 shares into 1 worth three times as much. Value is preserved, but companies often do it to lift a low share price above an exchange's minimum — so it can be worth asking why it happened.

Sector-relative valuation

How cheap a stock looks compared with the other dividend payers in its own sector, rather than against the whole market. Shown as a percentile: "cheaper than 78% of the sector" means only 22% of its peers screen as better value on the same yardstick.

Spin-off

A company handing its shareholders shares in a business it is separating out — you wake up owning two companies instead of one, without buying anything. Your original share count doesn't change, but part of what you paid for it now belongs to the new company: the two split the cost basis in proportion to what each was worth on the day. The company publishes that split (often as "Form 8937"), and it matters, because whatever isn't allocated to the new shares shows up as pure gain when you sell them.

Stock split

A company dividing each existing share into several — a 4-for-1 split turns 1 share into 4, each worth a quarter as much. Your position is worth exactly the same before and after; only the number of pieces changes. Dividends per share fall by the same ratio, so your income is unaffected too.

Target price

The price you'd be happy to buy a watched stock at. Quantic flags it on your radar when the market trades below it.

The wheel

An income loop: sell cash-secured puts until you're assigned shares, collect dividends while you hold them, then sell covered calls until the shares are called away — and repeat. Every step earns premium or dividends.

Total return

Everything a holding earns you — dividends received plus the change in share price — not just the income.

Trade-backed position

A position built from your actual buys and sells, whether typed in or imported from a broker statement. The shares and average cost are calculated from those trades rather than entered directly — which is why you edit the trades, not the position. Commissions, splits and option assignments all fold in automatically.

Two-month rule

A Spanish rule: if you sell at a loss and buy the same security back within two months either side, that loss is not deductible this year. It is not lost — it attaches to the shares you bought back and comes due when you eventually sell those. The window is a year, not two months, for securities not listed in the EU. It exists to stop people booking a loss and immediately buying back in.

Two-stage DDM

A dividend discount model with two phases: a few years of fast growth at the company's recent rate, then a slower, permanent "terminal" rate. Because the fast phase is finite, it can value fast growers where the simple Gordon Growth model breaks down (when growth is close to or above the required return).

Typed-in position

A position where you entered the shares and average cost yourself, without a trade history behind it. Quick to set up and freely editable, but Quantic doesn't know when you bought or what you paid in commission — so it can't show you a timeline or work out your real cost. You can give it a history at any time from the position's card.

UCITS

The European fund standard. A UCITS fund can be sold to retail investors across Europe, and a US-listed ETF cannot — it lacks the key information document European rules require, so your broker refuses the order. Most large index funds exist in both versions, tracking the same thing under different tickers: the one listed on a European exchange is the one you can buy.

Underweight

A holding that's a smaller slice of your portfolio than you intend — a candidate to top up toward your target mix.

Value score

Quantic's 0–10 read on how cheap a dividend stock looks, combining its P/E, where its yield sits in its own 5-year range (Dividend Yield Theory), and its price versus a fair-value estimate. Higher = cheaper.

Withholding tax

When you own a foreign stock, the company's home country usually skims a percentage off each dividend before it reaches you — say 15% on US shares. Quantic estimates this from where each holding is based and your tax residence, so your income reflects what actually arrives. It's the tax withheld at source only — not any tax your own country adds, nor amounts you can often reclaim or credit back under a tax treaty.

Yield band

A stock's current dividend yield shown against its own range over the past five years — the low, average and high. Near the high end the shares look relatively cheap for the income they pay; near the low end, relatively expensive. It's the picture behind Dividend Yield Theory.

Yield on cost

Your annual dividends from a holding divided by what you originally paid for it — so a growing payout keeps lifting your yield on cost even as the share price climbs.

Yield trap

An unusually high yield that looks tempting but signals danger: the market has pushed the price down because it expects a dividend cut. A stretched payout or a shrinking dividend alongside the sky-high yield is the tell — the income may not last.