Changelog - Dividend Capture Scanner

v10 Current August 23, 2026

Several pots of capital, and a plan that knows what is already held.

New The Rotation Plan can run several independent pots of capital at once. Each pot, called a slice, is the same size and holds one position at a time, so a trade that gets stuck freezes its own slice while the others keep trading. No two slices are ever put in the same stock. (Column: Slice)
Fix The plan now knows what the account is already holding. Before this it could propose buying a stock already owned, and it assumed every dollar was free even when the money was tied up in an open position. Positions already held are excluded, a slice waiting on cash starts from the date that cash is due back, and a position with no sell date blocks its slice outright instead of quietly invalidating the whole estimate.
New Every candidate now carries its sector, and whole sectors can be ruled out in the settings. The run reports how many names an exclusion removed, so nothing goes missing silently. (Column: Sector)
New A sector concentration warning. Running several slices only spreads risk if they are in different parts of the market, and high yields cluster in a few rate-sensitive sectors, so the plan now names any sector that two or more slices would hold at the same time.
Improved The visual calendar colours by slice rather than by trade, and notes any slice that is blocked or still holding a position.
Fix The automatic morning run no longer fails silently on a computer that was asleep. Windows catches up on a missed run as soon as the machine comes back, but that catch-up starts during sign-in and the scan was being killed seconds later, leaving an empty log file that looked like success. The catch-up option is replaced by a second trigger a few minutes after sign-in, and the helper script now stops immediately if today's scan has already run, so two triggers cannot mean two scans.
New Every automatic run records the finish time and the result in a file called LAST_RUN.txt, so a scan that dies leaves evidence instead of silence.

v9 Older July 23, 2026

A preferred list of names worth holding.

New A preferred list: quality companies and funds judged safe to keep holding for an extended period if a rebound takes far longer than expected. They are flagged in every output so the safest names are visible at a glance. (Column: Pref)
New The Rotation Plan favors preferred names in close calls: when two candidates score within 10% of each other, the preferred one gets the slot. The displayed ranking is never changed, so scores stay honest; the preference only decides trade picks. The visual calendar marks preferred trades with a star.

v8 Older June 13, 2026

Every day's plan is kept, not overwritten.

Improved The visual calendar is now saved with the date in its filename, rotation_calendar_YYYYMMDD.html, matching the daily CSV and Excel files. Each day's plan stays on disk as a record instead of being overwritten by the next run. Like all outputs, it stays on your computer and is never uploaded.

v7 Older June 12, 2026

Two tax estimates, side by side.

New Every after-tax figure is now shown at two tax rates side by side: 35% as the conservative estimate and 25% as the optimistic one. The real rate depends on deductions and the year's tax rules, so a range is more honest than a single guess. This replaces the single 40% default. (Columns: AfterTax35/100, AfterTax25/100)
New The Rotation Plan shows the net dollars and the running total at both tax rates, and the visual calendar shows the total as a range. (Columns: Net 35% $, Net 25% $, Running 35% $, Running 25% $)
Improved The ranking math stays on the conservative 35% rate, so stocks are never ranked on the optimistic number. (Columns: Ann.Eff%, Score)
New A Paper Trading page on the site: the step-by-step plan for testing the strategy with simulated money before any real dollars, with an honest status and a results section that fills in as trades complete.

v6 Older June 11, 2026

A trade calendar that keeps the same money working.

New Rotation Plan: a chronological trade calendar that rolls one pot of capital (default $50,000, adjustable) from one dividend into the next. It buys on each stock's best entry day, sells at its average rebound, and shows estimated net dollars per trade with a running total. Printed with the results and saved as a second sheet in the Excel file. (Columns: Buy, Ex-Date, Est. Sell, Cash Free, Net $, Running Net $)
New Visual calendar, generated automatically with every run, no extra step needed: rotation_calendar.html opens in any browser as a month-grid calendar of the plan. Each trade has its own colour and the busy days are tinted, so it is easy to see when the money is occupied and when it is free. It stays on your computer and is never uploaded.
New Financing fee setting: if a trade-funding company takes a share of the profit, that cut can be entered so the net figures stay honest. Default is 0%.
Improved The tax default is now 40% to reflect short-term gains taxed as regular income. (Column: AfterTax/100)
Improved The scan window is widened from 14 to 30 days ahead, so the calendar can plan a real sequence of trades.

v5 Older June 11, 2026

Entry timing and the real ex-date drop, measured per stock.

New Best entry timing: the scanner back-tests buying 1 to 20 trading days before the ex-date for each stock and reports the sweet spot that has historically worked best. (Column: Best Entry)
New Drop ratio: measures how much of the dividend the price actually gives up on the ex-date morning. 1.0 means it drops the full dividend; below 1.0 means it drops less, which is where the capture edge lives. (Column: Drop Ratio)
New Automatic morning run: an optional helper script (run_daily.ps1) lets Windows start the scanner by itself every morning and save the output to a dated log file, with a kill switch to pause or resume it at any time.
New Excel output: alongside the usual CSV, results are now also saved as a formatted Excel file with a bold locked header and sized columns, ready to read.
Fixed The data source occasionally returns a junk company name (such as a bare number); the scanner now falls back to the full company name or the ticker symbol.

v4 Older June 11, 2026

More honest numbers and a much faster scan.

Improved Failed recoveries now count. If a past dividend never recovered within 60 days, the efficiency math charges the full 60-day wait, so unreliable stocks no longer look better than they are. (Columns: Ann.Eff%, Score)
Improved The worst case is no longer hidden: if any past dividend never recovered, the worst-case column shows ">60" instead of the longest successful recovery. (Column: Worst Reb)
Improved The trend is now measured on total-return (dividend-adjusted) prices, so high payers whose share price naturally drifts down are no longer unfairly flagged as falling. (Column: Trend)
Improved The scan now runs in parallel, cutting the full run from several minutes to about one or two.
Fixed Tickers written with dots (such as BRK.B) were silently skipped; they are now converted to the format the data source expects.
Fixed Data errors are now counted and reported at the end of the run instead of being silently ignored.
Fixed Removed two funds whose headline yields are mostly a return of the investor's own capital, which made them misleading for capture.
Fixed Ex-dividend dates are now read in a time-zone-safe way so the date cannot shift by a day depending on the computer's clock.

v3 Older June 2, 2026

Refined around capital rotation and after-tax results.

New Worst-case rebound: alongside the average, the output now shows the longest it has ever taken a stock to recover. (Columns: Avg Reb, Worst Reb)
New Price trend signal: each stock is marked Up, Down, or Mixed. Downtrends are discouraged, since the price may not recover. (Column: Trend)
New Round-lot economics: dividend dollars and capital required per 100-share lot, since round lots are far easier to sell. (Columns: Div/100sh, Capital)
New After-tax figures: a configurable tax rate (default 35%) shows the dividend after tax, as these are short-term gains. (Column: AfterTax/100)
New Annualised efficiency: a single number modelling continuous capital rotation, rewarding high yield plus a fast rebound. It drives the final ranking. (Columns: Ann.Eff%, Score)
New Liquidity rating: thinly-traded names are flagged so they can be judged separately. (Column: Liquidity)
New Universe expanded again to include closed-end funds (CEFs) and preferred stocks.
Improved Dropped the yield tier buckets in favour of a simple ranking by yield percentage. (Column: Annual Yield)

v2 Older June 1, 2026

Built around three key selection rules.

New Rebound-time metric: measures how many trading days each stock has historically taken to climb back to its pre-dividend price, using two years of history.
New Recovery rate: shows how often each stock recovered within the test window.
New Yield tiers: stocks are grouped by annual yield (Tier 1 = 8%+, Tier 2 = 7%+, Tier 3 = 5%+, Tier 4 = below 5%).
New Expanded universe: added high-yield REITs and business development companies so 8%+ names actually appear. The S&P 500 alone rarely has them.
Improved Scoring formula now weighs yield tier, rebound speed, recovery rate, liquidity, and volatility together.
Improved Switched the yield filter from per-payment to annual yield, matching how yields are normally quoted.
Improved Output now includes Tier, Annual Yield, Capture Yield, Rebound Days, Recovered, and Score columns.
Fixed Removed two delisted tickers that returned errors.

v1 Initial May 31, 2026

First working scanner.

New Scans the S&P 500 for upcoming ex-dividend dates using Yahoo Finance.
New Basic filters for dividend size, stock price, trading volume, and ex-date window.
New Simple ranking by yield, days remaining, and volatility.
New Saves results to a dated spreadsheet file each run.