This account is a documentary, not a sermon. It’s my journey, not instructions for yours. My name is Craig. I’m 50, live in South Florida, born in Canada. “SCHD STAN” is a persona. It’s fun. I love $SCHD, but it’s not my only holding, and this isn’t a cult. I’m a long term investor focused on balance. I believe you can take something from every investing style dividends, growth, value and build your own approach. If you own both value and growth, you don’t have to chase performance when cycles shift. You’re already in it. That’s how I invest. My largest position is the S&P 500. I DCA into it every two weeks no matter what. $SCHD is number two. I also own individual stocks like $GOOGL, $AAPL, $META, $AMZN, $V along with ETFs like $SCHG, $FDVV, $CGDV, $DGRO, $SMH $VYMI. So why do I talk so much about $SCHD? Because I think it’s one of the most misunderstood ETFs out there. It’s not just about yield. It combines a strong starting yield, consistent dividend growth, and solid long term appreciation. To me, it helps balance out a portfolio that leans heavier toward growth and tech. Not instead of growth, alongside it. My goal is to steadily build my $SCHD position to $1M+ over time, creating a growing income stream for myself and my family for years to come. On this account I track my journey, share thoughts in real time, estimate SCHD’s quarterly dividends, and run my own version of the annual reconstitution to anticipate additions and removals. I also highlight dividend raises across holdings, report earnings for major holdings, post daily price updates, and share news on the fund and the companies it holds. All to better understand how it works and share that with anyone interested. Outside of investing, I enjoy running, watching football, movies, doing push-ups, and spending time with my family. I’m not here to tell you what to buy. Just showing how I do it. Step by step. Share by share. For the long run. Let’s chat. Tell me how you’re building your portfolio. Ask me anything about mine or $SCHD, how I think about it, how I’m building it. Thanks for stopping by to read this. 😎

☀️ GOOD MONDAY MORNING! $SCHD PRE MARKET $35.25 -0.06% 🔴 Friday’s Trading Range: $35.04 – $35.37 Last Week’s Price Return: +2.68% 🟢 After a strong week that included a new $35.45 all-time high, $SCHD is basically flat just before the opening bell. Premarket Comp: 🟢 $SCHG: +0.43% 🟢 $QQQ: +0.41% 🟢 $SPY: +0.31% 🟢 $VYM: +0.12% ⚪ $VTV: 0.00% 🔴 $SCHD: -0.06% Growth is leading early, while $SCHD is holding just above $35. 🤔 Does $SCHD hold $35 today and make another run at the $35.45 all-time high? Or is it headed back to $34s?

🚨 IPO NEWS! Anthropic, the company behind Claude AI, is reportedly preparing to go public in November. $ANT is rumored to be the ticker. What should the ticker be?

Who else actually looks forward to Mondays because the stock market is open again? 🤪

“A candle loses nothing by lighting another.” Someone else’s success doesn’t take anything away from yours. There’s enough room for all of us to win. Be happy for people. Cheer them on. Celebrate their wins, even when you’re still working toward your own goals. Don’t let envy or jealousy stop you from appreciating what others have accomplished. You never know how hard they’ve worked to get there. Life is better when we lift each other up instead of tearing each other down. Your time will come too. And when it does, I hope you’ve got people cheering just as loudly for you.

$SCHD HOLDINGS EARNINGS UPDATE: Verizon $VZ $VZ, a top 15 $SCHD holding at 3.61%, reported Q3 2026 earnings this morning. THE NUMBERS • EPS: $1.31, beat by $0.04 • Revenue: $34.31B, +1.5% YoY, missed by $540M • Operating cash flow: $11.5B, +2.2% YoY • Free cash flow: $7.8B, +12.1% YoY KEY HIGHLIGHTS • 406K postpaid phone net additions, best Q3 in 5 years • 137K postpaid net accounts added, best in over a decade • Mobility & broadband service revenue +2.9% YoY • 1.7M mobility and broadband subscribers added YTD, nearly double last year 2026 GUIDANCE RAISED • Adjusted EPS: $5.04–$5.06 • Postpaid phone additions: 1.1M–1.2M • Free cash flow growth approaching 12% • Operating cash flow growth: 3.5–5% $VZ: $45.44, +1.75% premarket. Strong subscriber growth, double-digit free cash flow growth and raised full-year guidance despite the revenue miss. A solid quarter for one of $SCHD’s larger holdings.

This past week alone, $SCHD added another 3.44 pts to its YTD return while $QQQ lost 0.88 pts. All five dividend-focused ETFs improved their YTD returns, while $QQQ and $VOO lost ground. More below…

I’m also looking forward to $GOOGL earnings on Wednesday! It’s my largest individual stock holding, so I’ll definitely be paying attention. Which earnings report are you most interested in this week?

What a difference 3 weeks make! On Oct. 2, $QQQ had overtaken $SCHD for the YTD lead. Now $SCHD is ahead by a massive 16.68 pts, and $DGRO has passed $QQQ to claim second place. More below…

$SCHD EARNINGS WATCH | Oct 26–30 7 $SCHD holdings are scheduled to report earnings this week, representing a combined 18.78% of the ETF! Monday, Oct 26 • $VZ Verizon (3.54%) Before open • $CINF Cincinnati Financial (0.65%) After close Tuesday, Oct 27 • $KO Coca-Cola (4.25%) Before open • $UPS UPS (1.81%) Before open • $OKE ONEOK (1.41%) After close Wednesday, Oct 28 • $ADP Automatic Data Processing (2.91%) Before open Friday, Oct 30 • $CVX Chevron (4.21%) Before open The three largest holdings reporting this week, $KO, $CVX and $VZ, account for 12.00% of $SCHD. Plenty of earnings to keep an eye on this week.

Yup! $SCHD’s next dividend payment: Dec 14 Ex-dividend: Dec 9 Hard to believe this isn’t a bigger topic at parties. 😉

Looking back at September, what a buying opportunity that $SCHD pullback turned out to be! I took advantage of the weakness and scooped up 356 shares throughout the month! 😎

$SCHD TOP 10 UPDATE: PepsiCo Enters, Concentration Falls! Top 10 Holdings & Sector Allocation As of October 24, 2026 TOP 10 HOLDINGS $TXN Texas Instruments 4.40% $CVX Chevron 4.33% $COP ConocoPhillips 4.32% $PG Procter & Gamble 4.30% $KO Coca-Cola 4.13% $UNH UnitedHealth 4.12% $QCOM Qualcomm 4.08% $HD Home Depot 3.95% $AMGN Amgen 3.90% $PEP PepsiCo 3.81% Top 10 combined: 41.34% WHAT CHANGED? • $PEP moves into the top 10, replacing $MRK. • Top 10 concentration falls from 41.65% to 41.34%. • $TXN remains #1, but its weighting declined from 4.68% to 4.40%. Note: These are routine changes in portfolio weightings, not a scheduled rebalance or reconstitution. SECTOR ALLOCATION Staples 19.86% Healthcare 18.54% Tech 16.44% Energy 16.44% Financials 8.85% Industrials 7.50% Discretionary 6.73% Communication 5.55% Utilities 0.09% A FEW OBSERVATIONS • Energy and Tech are tied at 16.44%. • Staples and Healthcare combine for 38.40%. • The four largest sectors account for 71.28% of $SCHD. What stands out to you in this week’s holdings and sector breakdown? 🤔

Stop waiting for the perfect moment. Start now. Start making progress, even if it’s just one small step. Stay patient. Stay consistent. Keep moving forward. Small actions repeated over time can lead to extraordinary results. 😎 Another reminder for myself. I often need to be reminded of this too! Thanks, Bruce! 🙏

$SCHD JOURNEY TO $1M UPDATE! Oct 24, 2026 I haven’t bought a single share of $SCHD since Oct 9, when I picked up my last one at $32.98. Since then, $SCHD has climbed nearly 7% to $35.27! 😅 What a buying opportunity that September dip turned out to be! Just look at how many shares I added that month. See below! THE STATS • Total Shares: 9,397.1 • Value: $331,437 • Price Return: +35.7% • Annual Income: $9,905 • Yield on Cost: 4.06% • Avg Cost: $25.99 SHARES ADDED IN 2026 • January: +5.4 • February: +12.5 • March: +220.8 • April: +31.0 • May: +73.3 • June: +222.1 • July: +27.7 • August: +82.0 • September: +356.1 • October: +32.0 2026 TOTAL: +1,062.9 2026 GOAL: +1,200 I’d love another pullback to accumulate more, but I’m happy to stay patient and wait for better buying opportunities. The marathon continues. 🐢

A fair point raised in the post below about the overlap between $SCHD and $VOO. I appreciate the perspective. It actually made me think about the overlap statistic a little differently, and I hadn’t really considered it from that angle before. I agree that the 8% weighted overlap isn’t a diversification score. But I think what’s more interesting isn’t the low overlap itself. It’s what those differences in holdings and weightings actually create. $SCHD has a much stronger value and quality tilt than $VOO, with different sector exposures and far less concentration in mega-cap tech. Those differences are a big part of why I like combining them. As for the roughly 0.80 correlation, that doesn’t surprise me. Both are U.S. equity investments, so I’d expect them to move in broadly similar directions. I’ve also said before that I believe $SCHD has the potential to deliver long-term total returns comparable to the S&P 500, just by taking a different path to get there. Look at some historical total returns: Actual ETF performance: • 2026 YTD: $SCHD +31.74% vs. $VOO +12.36% • 2022: $SCHD -3.23% vs. $VOO -18.19% • 2021: $SCHD +29.87% vs. $VOO +28.78% • 2018: $SCHD -5.56% vs. $VOO -4.50% Historical index backtests (before $SCHD existed): • 2000–2002 Tech Bust: +17.12% vs. -44.33% • 2007–2009 Financial Crisis: -44.47% vs. -50.84% The backtests compare $SCHD’s underlying index against the broad U.S. market, not $VOO itself. They’re hypothetical results, but provide additional historical context. Of course, $SCHD doesn’t always hold up better in downturns or keep pace during strong markets. There are plenty of examples of the opposite. But that’s really my point. Two investments can be highly correlated and still have meaningfully different factor exposures and performance characteristics. I’m not looking for $SCHD to replace $VOO or hedge against the entire stock market. I like that each brings something different to the table. Over time, I believe those different strengths make them a complementary combination for long-term investing.

🚨 $SCHD EXTENDS ITS LEAD AS $QQQ SLIPS IN THE RANKINGS! 2026 ETF TOTAL RETURN TRACKER | Oct. 24 Update Every weekend, I update this series tracking YTD and 1-year total returns across dividend, growth and broad market ETFs. 2026 YTD Total Return 🥇 $SCHD +31.74% 🥈 $DGRO +16.35% 🥉 $QQQ +15.06% 4️⃣ $VYM +14.52% 5️⃣ $VOO +12.36% 6️⃣ $VIG +11.96% 7️⃣ $FDVV +11.78% What a difference three weeks make! On Oct. 2, $QQQ had overtaken $SCHD for the YTD lead. Now $SCHD is ahead by a massive 16.68 pts, and $DGRO has passed $QQQ to claim second place. Look how quickly the gap between $SCHD and $QQQ changed: Oct. 2: $QQQ led by 0.22 pts Oct. 9: $SCHD led by 0.70 pts Oct. 16: $SCHD led by 12.36 pts Oct. 24: $SCHD leads by 16.68 pts This week alone, $SCHD added another 3.44 pts to its YTD return while $QQQ lost 0.88 pts. All five dividend-focused ETFs improved their YTD returns, while $QQQ and $VOO lost ground. 1-Year Total Return 🥇 $SCHD +35.06% 🥈 $DGRO +18.81% 🥉 $VYM +17.41% 4️⃣ $QQQ +15.91% 5️⃣ $VOO +14.44% 6️⃣ $FDVV +14.23% 7️⃣ $VIG +13.79% The 1-year chart tells an even more dramatic story. Just three weeks ago, $QQQ was leading the entire group. Now it’s fallen to 4th, behind $SCHD, $DGRO and $VYM. $SCHD’s lead over $QQQ has grown from 14.95 pts last week to 19.15 pts today, another 4.20-point swing in just one week. What’s especially interesting is how quickly the story has changed. We watched $SCHD’s commanding lead disappear throughout September as growth gained ground. Now, in October, dividend strategies have bounced back strongly while $QQQ has pulled back. It’s a great reminder of why I like owning different styles of investments. Growth, value and dividend strategies don’t always move together, and leadership can change dramatically over relatively short periods. With just over two months left in 2026, do you think dividend/value ETFs will continue to lead, or will growth make another comeback before year-end? 👇YTD TOTAL RETURNS

I’m genuinely curious what everyone is doing and WHY.

Results come over time, not overnight. Stay patient. Stay consistent. Keep showing up. As Bruce Lee said: “Make at least one definite move daily toward your goal.”