Orchid Island Capital (ORC) Stock: Dividend and Book Value 2026

What changed on October 14, 2026, and what has not been filed yet

Orchid files a short 8-K about two weeks after each quarter ends, with an estimated book value, an estimated GAAP result and a portfolio table, and the full Form 10-Q about ten days later. The one filed on October 14, 2026 covers the quarter ended September 30, 2026.

The 8-K states that the book value, net loss and return are “preliminary, subject to change, and subject to review by the Company’s independent registered public accounting firm.” It gives no explanation for the quarter's loss; the commentary normally arrives with the Form 10-Q and the earnings release. As of October 16, 2026 neither the 10-Q nor the earnings 8-K for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 has been filed. In 2024 and 2025 the earnings 8-K came on October 24 and 23 and the 10-Q on October 25 and 24, so late October is the pattern, not a date the company has announced. The one date it has given is the next dividend announcement, November 10, 2026.

The share count fell by 4,941,574 between June 30 and September 30 (our arithmetic). The 8-K does not say why. The filings show one mechanism that lowers the count: the repurchase program, whose authorization the board raised by 25,000,000 shares on June 22, 2026. How many shares were bought, and at what price, will be in the 10-Q.

Dividend history: a monthly payment that has been cut again and again

Orchid declares its dividend monthly, announcing it around the middle of the month for holders of record at month-end, and pays it about four weeks after the record date. The company states plainly that it “has not established a minimum distribution payment level and is not assured of its ability to make distributions to stockholders in the future.”

The table is as printed in the 10-K and the June 2026 10-Q; the filings do not say whether older years are restated for changes in the share count, so read the direction, not any single pair of years.

The reduction came with the April 2026 declaration, the same 8-K that reported an estimated book value of $7.08 and a net loss for the first quarter. In the first-quarter earnings release of April 23, 2026 the chief executive said: “We feel comfortable with our slightly revised dividend rate.” Taken as a percentage of book value, the annualized dividend was 15.8% at the end of 2023 ($1.44 on $9.10), 17.8% at the end of 2024, 19.1% at the end of 2025 and, at the new $1.20 a year, 16.9% on March 31, 2026, 16.6% on June 30 and 19.9% on the estimated $6.02 (all our arithmetic). A cut of 17% was followed by a book value drop of 16.6% in one quarter, so the ratio is back near where it was before the cut.

Book value per share, quarter by quarter

Book value is total stockholders' equity divided by shares outstanding; Orchid reports an estimate in an 8-K two weeks after quarter-end and the final figure in the 10-Q. The table uses the quarter-end figure each press release gave.

The company defines total return as the dividends declared and paid in the quarter plus the change in book value, divided by book value at the start of the quarter. Its figures for full years are 4.73% for 2024 and 11.00% for 2025. Book value fell $1.01 a share in 2024 and $0.55 in 2025, against $1.44 of dividends each year.

From December 31, 2023 to the estimated September 30, 2026, book value fell $3.08 (33.8%) while $3.84 a share was declared. Net income per share summed over the 11 quarters is $1.07 (our arithmetic; the quarterly figures sit on different share counts, so the sum is approximate). Net income less dividends is therefore -$2.77, and the remaining -$0.31 of the book value decline comes from other items, including issuing and repurchasing shares; the 8-Ks do not break it out.

Does the portfolio earn the dividend? Net earnings excluding gains

Orchid carries its mortgage bonds and its hedges at fair value, so GAAP net income swings with every move in rates and spreads: $0.62 a share in Q4 2025, $(0.11) in Q1 2026, $0.44 in Q2 and an estimated $(0.90) in Q3. The company also publishes net earnings excluding realized and unrealized gains and losses on RMBS and derivatives, which isolates interest income less interest expense and operating costs. Its own gains line includes net interest income on interest rate swaps, so this measure is not the same as an AGNC or Annaly measure.

The ratios are our arithmetic. The Q3 2026 figure is $1.17 of net losses on RMBS and derivatives less the $0.90 net loss, because the 8-K gives those two numbers and not the excluding-gains figure itself. In dollars, the excluding-gains earnings for Q2 2026 were $53.2 million against $60.3 million of dividends declared (0.88 times), and for Q1 2026 $49.7 million against $69.0 million (0.72 times).

Two readings. First, the gap has narrowed from a negative number to about 0.90 times because of two things the filings show: the swing in the net interest spread (the company reported it at -0.44% in Q4 2023, 1.43% in Q4 2025 and, in the Q2 2026 release, “just under 2%”) and the $0.02 cut in the monthly dividend. Second, the company does not manage the dividend to this measure. The October 2026 press release says: “The Company views REIT taxable income as a better indication of income to be paid in the form of a dividend rather than net income.” REIT taxable income is not published monthly, and the 10-K says the difference is “primarily” the recognition of interest income on RMBS, unrealized gains and losses on RMBS, and the amortization of losses on derivative instruments treated as hedges for tax purposes. So the ratio above is a way to see how much of the dividend the interest spread alone covers, not a statement of how the board sets it.

In the Q2 2026 release the chief executive put the same point as a return: “returns available to us are approximately equal to our current dividend yield expressed as a percentage of book value per share,” at about 16.5% to 17.0%. In the third quarter the change in the value of the portfolio and hedges was an estimated loss of $1.17 a share.

Share count: at-the-market sales, then buybacks

Orchid sells new shares in the market through “equity distribution agreements” with sales agents. Each agreement lists the shares sold and the proceeds, so the average price is a division the filings do not print.

For the last three agreements the average sale price sits inside the range of the quarter-end book values, so the sales were near book value on average. The company said the same of 2025: “the shares issued were mildly dilutive to book value on average,” and that growth in equity had cut its expenses, including the management fee, to “approximately 1.7% of equity versus the 2.6% run rate at the end of 2024.” Selling at about book value leaves book value per share where it was; what the issuance did was raise the number of shares that every future dividend has to be paid on. Stockholders' equity went from $469.9 million (estimated, December 31, 2023) to $1,441.3 million (June 30, 2026), 3.07 times, and the shares 3.87 times (our arithmetic).

The tone changed in 2026. In the six months to June 30 the company still sold 18,558,681 shares for $137.7 million gross ($7.42 a share, our arithmetic), but in the second quarter it also repurchased 1,106,557 shares at an average of $6.64, 92% of the $7.22 book value at June 30 (our arithmetic). Buying back shares below book value raises book value per share, by arithmetic. On June 22 the board added 25,000,000 shares to the repurchase authorization, which now stands at 26,612,580 shares or 13.3% of the shares outstanding, with no end date. The September 30 count of 194.7 million is 4.9 million lower than June 30.

Bimini: who is paid whether or not Orchid earns

Orchid is “externally managed by Bimini Advisors, LLC,” a position it has held since the 2013 IPO, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bimini Capital Management, Inc. (CIK 1275477). The 10-K also states that Orchid's chief executive and chairman, Robert Cauley, is the chief executive and chairman of Bimini, and that Orchid's chief financial officer, George Haas, is Bimini's chief financial officer, and that Bimini owned 569,071 Orchid shares (0.3%) at December 31, 2025.

The fee has three parts. A management fee of one-twelfth of 1.5% a month on the first $250 million of month-end equity, 1.25% on equity from $250 million to $500 million and 1.00% above $500 million. A share of overhead costs. And, since April 2022, a repo trading and clearing service: 1.5 basis points of the daily repo balance up to $5 billion and 1.0 basis point above it, plus $10,000 a month. The 10-K adds that terminating the agreement without cause costs “three times the average annual management fee,” and that the fee is based on equity “regardless of the performance of our investment portfolio.”

The tiered rates mean the fee grows more slowly than equity: related-party expenses were $16.6 million in 2025 against $12.8 million in 2024, up 29.7%, in a year the company says equity “more than doubled” (our arithmetic on the 10-K figures). In Q2 2026 the three payments together equal 8.5% of net interest income (our arithmetic: $5.08 million against $59.97 million), so the manager is not the main drag on the dividend. The point is what it does not do: it does not move with book value. Between the fourth quarter of 2023 and the second quarter of 2026 the quarterly payment to the manager went from $3.1 million to $5.1 million, while estimated book value to September 30 fell 33.8%.

The other side is in Bimini's own 10-Q. Its REIT management fees were $10,204,532 in the first six months of 2026 and $7,393,135 a year earlier, and it states that the Orchid agreement was about 74% of its consolidated revenues in the six months and 70% in the second quarter, against 66% and 68% a year earlier. Bimini bought 80% of an advisory firm, TJIM, on April 1, 2026, which added about 24% of its second-quarter revenue. That is context, not a claim about conflicts: Orchid's shareholders and Bimini's revenues depend on the same thing, the amount of equity Orchid holds.

Funding: repo, counterparties, leverage and hedges

Orchid funds its bonds with repurchase agreements. Its adjusted leverage, repo divided by equity, was 7.7 to 1 on June 30, 2026 and its economic leverage 7.3 to 1.

The September 30 repo table lists 33 counterparties. The largest, Citigroup Global Markets, holds $466.5 million or 4.5% of the total, so no counterparty is more than 4.5%. The average rate is 3.99% and the weighted average maturity 26 days; 31 of the 33 have a weighted average maturity of 29 days or less, and the longest is September 3, 2027 (South Street Securities, 181 days). Most of the funding has to be renewed within the month. Liquidity at June 30 was $776.0 million in cash and unpledged securities, 54% of equity.

The same 8-K table shows $10.25 billion of hedges at September 30: $7.86 billion of payer swaps maturing June 2031, $858.6 million of 10-year Treasury futures, $560.0 million of 10-year Ultra futures, $150.0 million of 30-year Ultra futures, $390.0 million of SOFR futures and a $415.0 million short TBA position. Payer swaps were $5.86 billion at December 31, 2025 and $7.81 billion at June 30, 2026, when the average fixed rate paid was 3.61% against 3.68% received.

The company's model (Citigroup Yield Book, instantaneous parallel shifts) shows the bonds gaining $221.5 million in a 50 basis point fall and losing $241.6 million in a rise, the hedges moving by $(225.7) million and $220.6 million, and a grand total of $(4.2) million for the fall and $(21.0) million for the rise. A rise of 50 basis points is 1.8% of the implied equity (our arithmetic). The model does not include a change in mortgage spreads. Orchid's portfolio is 99.89% pass-through Agency securities, 96.0% whole pools, 52.1% Fannie Mae and 47.9% Freddie Mac; by coupon, 30-year 5.5% is 35.2%, 6.0% is 27.1%, 5.0% is 18.4% and 6.5% is 11.2% of the portfolio.

How this differs from AGNC and Annaly, and from a non-traded REIT

Our page on AGNC, Annaly and Two Harbors covers two much larger agency REITs. Orchid differs in four ways its filings show: an external manager paid on equity and led by the same executives as the manager's parent; share issuance through at-the-market agreements that has multiplied the share count by 3.9; a book value announced as an estimate two weeks after each quarter; and a dividend that was stepped down from $0.12 to $0.10 in April 2026. A reader comparing the three should compare book value, leverage and the earnings measure each company publishes, not the headline yield.

Against a non-traded REIT, or the commercial mortgage REITs on our dividend and delinquency table, the contrast is in how fast the number moves. Orchid marks every bond and hedge to market each quarter, and the shares trade daily on the NYSE at a price the filings do not give. A non-traded REIT publishes an appraised net asset value and limits withdrawals; see non-traded versus publicly traded REITs.

What a holder can do with this

This page is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.

• Read the 10-Q when it arrives, and go to three lines. The final book value against the $6.02 estimate; the net earnings excluding gains and losses against $0.30 a quarter; and the share repurchase note, which gives the number and price of shares bought in the third quarter.
• Put your own price in the formulas. The filings do not give a share price. At $1.20 a year the dividend is $1.20 divided by the price you can see on a quote page; the price divided by $6.02 is the price-to-book on the estimate. Both change every day.
• Check the share count, not only the per-share figures. Dividends declared were $190.9 million in 2025 against $96.3 million in 2024 (10-K); the company is paying out more money on more shares.
• Check the tax paperwork. Distributions from a REIT are reported on Form 1099-DIV after year-end, split between ordinary dividends, any Section 199A portion and any return of capital; the split is decided after the year, not by the monthly declaration. See our pages on REIT distributions and return of capital, Section 199A dividends, when the 1099-DIV arrives and the year-end tax calendar.
• Compare leverage on the same basis. Orchid's adjusted leverage was 7.7 to 1 at June 30, 2026; our AGNC and Annaly page shows each company's own leverage measure, and they are not identical to Orchid's.

FAQ

All figures are from SEC EDGAR filings read on October 16, 2026. Orchid Island Capital, Inc. (CIK 1518621): Form 10-K for 2025 (accession 0001437749-26-004889); Form 10-Q for June 30, 2026 (0001437749-26-024400); Forms 8-K with press releases of January 10, February 1, April 10, April 25, July 10, July 25, October 16 and October 24, 2024 (0001437749-24-001130, -24-002833, -24-011661, -24-013237, -24-022495, -24-023483, -24-031378, -24-032025); January 8, January 30, April 9, April 24, July 9, July 24, October 15 and October 23, 2025 (0001437749-25-000749, -25-002268, -25-011546, -25-012974, -25-022433, -25-023429, -25-031058, -25-031640); and January 7, January 14, January 29, March 18, April 15, April 23, May 13, June 10, June 22, July 8, July 13, July 23, August 12, September 14 and October 14, 2026 (0001437749-26-000817, -26-001277, -26-002424, -26-008847, -26-012457, -26-013198, -26-016792, -26-020089, -26-021334, -26-023058, -26-023434, -26-024318, -26-027362, -26-030328, -26-032635). Bimini Capital Management, Inc. (CIK 1275477): Form 10-Q for June 30, 2026 (0001437749-26-026516). Figures marked “our arithmetic” are our calculations from those documents. Book values for quarters other than the one in a Form 10-Q are the estimates in the 8-K press releases. Nothing here is a forecast, a price target or a recommendation.