Most experienced investors have lived through enough regime shifts to recognize one when it stares them in the face. We are in the terminal phase of a 15-year growth-dominant, zero-rate, buyback-fueled equity cycle. The evidence is no longer circumstantial; it is overwhelming. For allocators who still care about risk-adjusted returns, capital preservation in real terms, and genuine cash-on-cash yield, dividend-centric strategies have moved from being merely “defensive” to being structurally indispensable. Here are the five interlocking macro, micro, and behavioral reasons why.