The hardest decision in dividend investing: when do you sell a position that's been good to you?

Dividend investing culture is heavily biased toward never selling. "Our favourite holding period is forever." "Time in the market beats timing the market." All true, generally. But I've held positions too long out of loyalty and watched dividends get cut when the writing was on the wall.

The signals I now watch for:

Dividend coverage deteriorating over multiple quarters. One bad quarter happens. Three consecutive quarters of declining coverage is a trend. I start getting nervous when the payout ratio climbs above 80% without a clear path back down.

Debt increasing to maintain the dividend. Some companies will issue bonds or draw credit lines to avoid cutting the dividend. This is borrowing from the future to pay the present. It can work short-term, but it's usually a sign that the underlying business can't support the payout.

Strategic pivots that change the thesis. I owned AT&T for years for the dividend. When they started their media acquisition spree, the thesis changed—they were becoming a growth/turnaround story that happened to pay a dividend, not a stable cash cow. I should've sold then. I didn't. The dividend cut eventually came.

The sector is in secular decline. This is the hardest one because the yield often looks most attractive right before things get bad. Retail, traditional media, fossil fuels—sometimes you need to recognise that no management team can fight structural decline forever.

When I explicitly don't sell:

Price drops without fundamental change. If the business is fine and the dividend is secure, a lower price means a higher yield on new purchases. This is accumulation time, not selling time.

One bad quarter. Everyone has bad quarters. I want to see a pattern before acting.

The yield drops because the price rose. This is success, not a problem. As long as dividend growth continues, capital appreciation is a bonus.

A decision framework I'm trying:

For each position, I write down the thesis: why I own it and what would have to change for me to sell. Then quarterly, I review against that thesis. If the thesis is broken, I sell. If it's intact, I hold regardless of price action. This removes some of the emotional attachment.

How do you think about selling? Anyone have clear rules they follow, or is it more intuitive?