All investors love getting big returns from their portfolio, whether it's through stocks, bonds, ETFs, or other types of securities. However, when you're an income investor, your primary focus is generating consistent cash flow from each of your liquid investments.
While cash flow can come from bond interest or interest from other types of investments, income investors hone in on dividends. A dividend is that coveted distribution of a company's earnings paid out to shareholders, and investors often view it by its dividend yield, a metric that measures the dividend as a percent of the current stock price. Many academic studies show that dividends account for significant portions of long-term returns, with dividend contributions exceeding one-third of total returns in many cases.
People's United in Focus
Based in Bridgeport, People's United (PBCT) is in the Finance sector, and so far this year, shares have seen a price change of -1.18%. The holding company for People's United Bank is currently shelling out a dividend of $0.17 per share, with a dividend yield of 3.79%. This compares to the Financial – Savings and Loan industry's yield of 1.81% and the S&P 500's yield of 1.78%.
Taking a look at the company's dividend growth, its current annualized dividend of $0.70 is up 1.7% from last year. People's United has increased its dividend 5 times on a year-over-year basis over the last 5 years for an average annual increase of 1.51%. Looking ahead, future dividend growth will be dependent on earnings growth and payout ratio, which is the proportion of a company's annual earnings per share that it pays out as a dividend. People's United's current payout ratio is 59%. This means it paid out 59% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.
Earnings growth looks solid for PBCT for this fiscal year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2018 is $1.29 per share, which represents a year-over-year growth rate of 32.99%.
Bottom Line
Investors like dividends for a variety of different reasons, from tax advantages and decreasing overall portfolio risk to considerably improving stock investing profits. However, not all companies offer a quarterly payout.
Big, established firms that have more secure profits are often seen as the best dividend options, but it's fairly uncommon to see high-growth businesses or tech start-ups offer their stockholders a dividend. Income investors have to be mindful of the fact that high-yielding stocks tend to struggle during periods of rising interest rates. That said, they can take comfort from the fact that PBCT is not only an attractive dividend play, but also represents a compelling investment opportunity with a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
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