All investors love getting big returns from their portfolio, whether it’s through stocks, bonds, ETFs, or other types of securities. But when you’re an income investor, your primary focus is generating consistent cash flow from each of your liquid investments.
Cash flow can come from bond interest, interest from other types of investments, and of course, 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.
Park National in Focus
Park National (PRK) is headquartered in Newark, and is in the Finance sector. The stock has seen a price change of 5.58% since the start of the year. The financial services holding company is paying out a dividend of $0.96 per share at the moment, with a dividend yield of 3.5% compared to the Banks – Midwest industry’s yield of 1.81% and the S&P 500’s yield of 1.78%.
Looking at dividend growth, the company’s current annualized dividend of $3.84 is up 36.2% from last year. Over the last 5 years, Park National has increased its dividend 1 times on a year-over-year basis for an average annual increase of 0.12%. Future dividend growth will depend on earnings growth as well as payout ratio, which is the proportion of a company’s annual earnings per share that it pays out as a dividend. Park National’s current payout ratio is 57%. This means it paid out 57% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.
Earnings growth looks solid for PRK for this fiscal year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2018 is $7.15 per share, which represents a year-over-year growth rate of 30.71%.
Bottom Line
Investors like dividends for many reasons; they greatly improve stock investing profits, decrease overall portfolio risk, and carry tax advantages, among others. It’s important to keep in mind that not all companies provide 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 PRK is not only an attractive dividend play, but is also a compelling investment opportunity with a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
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