Bank of Greece (ATH:TELL): Ex-Dividend Is In 4 Days

Have you been keeping an eye on Bank of Greece's (ATH:TELL) upcoming dividend of €0.67 per share payable on the 11 April 2019? Then you only have 4 days left before the stock starts trading ex-dividend on the 04 April 2019. Is this future income stream a compelling catalyst for dividend investors to think about the stock as an investment today? Let's take a look at Bank of Greece's most recent financial data to examine its dividend characteristics in more detail.

Check out our latest analysis for Bank of Greece

5 checks you should do on a dividend stock

Whenever I am looking at a potential dividend stock investment, I always check these five metrics:

• Is it the top 25% annual dividend yield payer?
• Has its dividend been stable over the past (i.e. no missed payments or significant payout cuts)?
• Has dividend per share amount increased over the past?
• Is its earnings sufficient to payout dividend at the current rate?
• Will it be able to continue to payout at the current rate in the future?

How does Bank of Greece fare?

Bank of Greece has a trailing twelve-month payout ratio of 1.4%, meaning the dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Furthermore, analysts have not forecasted a dividends per share for the future, which makes it hard to determine the yield shareholders should expect, and whether the current payout is sustainable, moving forward.

If you want to dive deeper into the sustainability of a certain payout ratio, you may wish to consider the cash flow of the business. A business with strong cash flow can sustain a higher divided payout ratio than a company with weak cash flow.

If there's one type of stock you want to be reliable, it's dividend stocks and their stable income-generating ability. Dividend payments from Bank of Greece have been volatile in the past 10 years, with some years experiencing significant drops of over 25%. This means that dividend hunters should probably steer clear of the stock, at least for now until the track record improves.

In terms of its peers, Bank of Greece has a yield of 4.8%, which is high for Diversified Financial stocks but still below the market's top dividend payers.

Next Steps:

After digging a little deeper into Bank of Greece's yield, it's easy to see why you should be cautious investing in the company just for the dividend. But if you are not exclusively a dividend investor, the stock could still be an interesting investment opportunity. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, I urge potential investors to try and get a good understanding of the underlying business and its fundamentals before deciding on an investment. Below, I've compiled three important aspects you should further examine:

1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for TELL’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for TELL’s outlook.
2. Valuation: What is TELL worth today? Even if the stock is a cash cow, it's not worth an infinite price. The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether TELL is currently mispriced by the market.
3. Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.