LillestrømBanken (OB:LSTSB-ME): 4 Days To Buy Before The Ex-Dividend Date

Important news for shareholders and potential investors in LillestrømBanken (OB:LSTSB-ME): The dividend payment of øre7.40 per share will be distributed to shareholders on 26 March 2019, and the stock will begin trading ex-dividend at an earlier date, 15 March 2019. Should you diversify into LillestrømBanken and boost your portfolio income stream? Well, keep on reading because today, I'm going to look at the latest data and analyze the stock and its dividend property in further detail.

See our latest analysis for LillestrømBanken

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:

• Does it pay an annual yield higher than 75% of dividend payers?
• Has it paid dividend every year without dramatically reducing payout in the past?
• Has dividend per share risen in the past couple of years?
• Is is able to pay the current rate of dividends from its earnings?
• Will it be able to continue to payout at the current rate in the future?

How does LillestrømBanken fare?

The company currently pays out 11% of its earnings as a dividend, according to its trailing twelve-month data, which means that the dividend is 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. Companies with strong cash flow can sustain a higher payout ratio, while companies with weaker cash flow generally cannot.

If dividend is a key criteria in your investment consideration, then you need to make sure the dividend stock you're eyeing out is reliable in its payments. Unfortunately, it is really too early to view LillestrømBanken as a dividend investment. It has only been paying out dividend for the past one year. Generally, the rule of thumb for determining whether a stock is a reliable dividend payer is that it should be consistently paying dividends for the past 10 years or more. Clearly there's a long road ahead before we can ascertain whether LSTSB-ME one as a stable dividend player.

Compared to its peers, LillestrømBanken produces a yield of 6.6%, which is high for Banks stocks.

Next Steps:

If LillestrømBanken is in your portfolio for cash-generating reasons, there may be better alternatives out there. However, if you are not strictly just a dividend investor, the stock could still offer some interesting investment opportunities. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, you should always research extensively before deciding whether or not a stock is an appropriate investment for you. I always recommend analysing the company's fundamentals and underlying business before making an investment decision. There are three relevant aspects you should further research:

1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for LSTSB-ME’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for LSTSB-ME’s outlook.
2. Valuation: What is LSTSB-ME 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 LSTSB-ME 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.