Dividend paying stocks like Decisive Dividend Corporation (CVE:DE) tend to be popular with investors, and for good reason – some research suggests a significant amount of all stock market returns come from reinvested dividends. On the other hand, investors have been known to buy a stock because of its yield, and then lose money if the company’s dividend doesn’t live up to expectations.
So you might want to consider getting our latest analysis on Decisive Dividend’s financial health here.
With a four-year payment history and a 9.3% yield, many investors probably find Decisive Dividend intriguing. It sure looks interesting on these metrics – but there’s always more to the story . When buying stocks for their dividends, you should always run through the checks below, to see if the dividend looks sustainable.
Explore this interactive chart for our latest analysis on Decisive Dividend!
Payout ratios
Companies (usually) pay dividends out of their earnings. If a company is paying more than it earns, the dividend might have to be cut. Comparing dividend payments to a company’s net profit after tax is a simple way of reality-checking whether a dividend is sustainable. In the last year, Decisive Dividend paid out 681% of its profit as dividends. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, from the perspective of an investor who hopes to own the company for many years, a payout ratio of above 100% is definitely a concern.
Dividend Volatility
One of the major risks of relying on dividend income, is the potential for a company to struggle financially and cut its dividend. Not only is your income cut, but the value of your investment declines as well – nasty. Looking at the data, we can see that Decisive Dividend has been paying a dividend for the past four years. The company has been paying a stable dividend for a few years now, but we’d like to see more evidence of consistency over a longer period. During the past four-year period, the first annual payment was CA$0.24 in 2015, compared to CA$0.36 last year. Dividends per share have grown at approximately 11% per year over this time.
We’re not overly excited about the relatively short history of dividend payments, however the dividend is growing at a nice rate and we might take a closer look.
Dividend Growth Potential
Dividend payments have been consistent over the past few years, but we should always check if earnings per share (EPS) are growing, as this will help maintain the purchasing power of the dividend. It’s good to see Decisive Dividend has been growing its earnings per share at 44% a year over the past five years. Earnings per share have been growing very rapidly, although the company is also paying out virtually all of its profit in dividends. While EPS could grow fast enough to make the dividend sustainable, in this type of situation, we’d want to pay extra attention to any fragilities in the company’s balance sheet.
We’d also point out that Decisive Dividend issued a meaningful number of new shares in the past year. Regularly issuing new shares can be detrimental – it’s hard to grow dividends per share when new shares are regularly being created.
Conclusion
Dividend investors should always want to know if a) a company’s dividends are affordable, b) if there is a track record of consistent payments, and c) if the dividend is capable of growing. Decisive Dividend is paying out a larger percentage of its profit than we’re comfortable with. We were also glad to see it growing earnings, although its dividend history is not as long as we’d like. While we’re not hugely bearish on it, overall we think there are potentially better dividend stocks than Decisive Dividend out there.
Are management backing themselves to deliver performance? Check their shareholdings in Decisive Dividend in our latest insider ownership analysis.
Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our curated list of dividend stocks with a yield above 3%.
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