MaxDividends Mission: Helping people build growing passive income, retire early, and live off dividends.
No one wants to work forever, and as the years go by the question of financial security only gets louder — can we really enjoy life in retirement without having to pick up another job just to pay the bills?
That’s exactly why MaxDividends exists: the MaxDividends Income System, powered by our dividend intelligence app — a proven, safe financial engine that turns invested capital into growing dividend income so you can live off dividends and retire early on your own terms.
Get instant access to the MaxDividends Income System & App. Start living off dividends today - with a system you can trust.
Intro
As the founder and CEO of BeatMarket (beatmarket.com) and MaxDividends, I actively use our platform’s innovations to make investment decisions.
At MaxDividends, we apply the Financial Score in the final stage of stock selection, choosing only companies with a score of 80 or higher. Today, I’d like to dive deeper into what the Financial Score is and why it matters.
💡 One More Secret Ingredient for the MaxDividends Strategy
Meet the Financial Score – your ultimate metric for selecting top stocks for your portfolio.
What Is the Financial Score?
The Financial Score is a rating system that evaluates a company's fundamental strength. It ranges from 20 to 99, with higher scores indicating stronger, more reliable companies.
Stocks with a score of 80+ are considered high-quality investments, while those rated 50 or below are seen as weaker choices. This score allows you to efficiently filter thousands of stocks and build investment strategies that maximize returns.
Global vs. Local Scores
The Financial Score consists of two components: Global and Local. The Global Score measures a company's strength on a worldwide scale, while the Local Score evaluates its performance within its home country.
Both scores use the same metrics but are ranked separately, helping you identify market leaders at both global and local levels.
Coverage and Methodology
Our team analyzes over 20,000 companies worldwide, covering:
North America: USA, Canada
Europe: UK, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Ireland
Asia & Oceania: Japan, Australia, China, India
We collect financial data daily and review 25 years of historical reports to ensure thorough and accurate evaluations. This long-term perspective allows us to assess a company’s resilience during economic downturns.
The Financial Score Consists of 3 Key Components
1. Growth Evaluation
We analyze key financial metrics, including sales, operating profit, net income, earnings per share, return on equity, and their trends over time.
Understanding whether a company is growing and evolving—or stagnating and incurring losses—is essential for making informed investment decisions.
2. Dividend Policy Evaluation
A company’s approach to dividends reflects its transparency and management strength. At MaxDividends, we assess:
Whether the company pays dividends
Dividend trends and payment frequency
Whether dividends come from current income rather than past profits or debt
Dividend per share and the percentage of profit allocated to payouts
A well-structured dividend policy—whether through consistent payments, regular increases, or reinvesting all funds into growth—indicates strong, strategic business management.
We also consider share buyback programs. When a company repurchases its own shares, it signals management’s confidence that the stock is undervalued.
3. Stability Evaluation
This section measures the company’s overall financial health, including:
The ratio of total assets to total liabilities
The ratio of current assets to current liabilities
Debt-to-equity ratio
Growth sustainability
A financially stable company maintains a strong cushion to navigate market downturns and continue operating effectively during economic crises.
Scoring System: Growth – Dividend – Stability
Each section—Growth, Dividend, and Stability—has a maximum score of 5 points. If a company meets all top-tier business criteria, it earns a total of 15 points.
The system then ranks companies and converts this evaluation into the Financial Score:
The Global Financial Score ranks companies worldwide.
The Local Financial Score ranks companies within a specific country.
Why This Matters
Buy Strong Businesses, Sell Weak Ones
Historically, companies with a Financial Score of 90+ have significantly outperformed those with lower ratings. See how high-rated stocks (90+) compare to lower-rated stocks (60 and below) in terms of performance.
the USA broad market, 4,500+ stocks, equal-weighted. Comparison since Financial Score launch (2021–2024).
Canada broad market, 1,000+ stocks, equal-weighted. Comparison since Financial Score launch (2021–2024).
Japan broad market, 3,500+ stocks, equal-weighted. Comparison since Financial Score launch (2021–2024).
Stock Scoring & Dividend Behavior
Since September 2025, we’ve been tracking every dividend increase and cut among U.S. companies that have paid dividends for 10 years or more without interruption.
For each event, we record:
the MaxDividends Financial Score at the time of the increase
the score at the time of a cut or suspension
and the size of the dividend change
Why do we do this?
Because when your goal is growing passive income, there are really only two situations where selling a company makes sense.
First — when a company meaningfully cuts or cancels its dividend.
Second — when the business stagnates for an extended period, even if the dividend hasn’t been cut yet. In those cases, capital is often better redeployed into stronger businesses.
To evaluate business quality in a clear and consistent way, we use a single metric:
the MaxDividends Financial Score.
It’s a composite score based on multiple financial factors, calculated using our internal formula. The maximum score is 99.
The higher the score, the stronger and more predictable the business
The lower the score, the less certain future results become
Within the MaxDividends framework, companies with a score below 80 already require closer, more careful analysis.
We believe this is a transparent and practical way to show why financial quality matters when making dividend decisions.
Here’s what the data shows so far.
What We’ve Observed
Since launching dividend event monitoring in U.S. stocks (September 2025):
138 total dividend events recorded
133 dividend increases
5 dividend cuts
Companies that raised dividends
Average Financial Score: 91
64 increases from companies with scores 90+
→ average increase: +7.96%56 increases from companies with scores 80–89
→ average increase: +5.22%13 increases from companies with scores below 80
→ average increase: +4.36%
In other words, about 90% of all dividend increases came from companies with scores above 80.
Companies that cut dividends
Average Financial Score: 74
Among companies with scores below 80:
18 total events
13 increases
4 cuts
That translates to a 24% probability of a dividend cut or suspension in this group.
Among companies with scores 80 and above:
120 dividend increases
only one dividend cut
That’s a cut probability of just 0.83% so far.
We’ll continue collecting and publishing this data and updating it quarterly. Later, we’ll also launch a public page where this tracking can be followed over time.
Why does this matter? Because dividend investing isn’t just about yield — it’s about business quality first.
That’s why we built MaxDividends Research Platform — to help investors find high-quality dividend stocks and ETFs, track growing income, build long-term dividend strategies, and create a life funded by passive income.
Step-by-step guides and walkthroughs covering the platform’s main features and workflows.