What To Know Before Buying CEI Limited (SGX:AVV) For Its Dividend

Dividends play an important role in compounding returns in the long run and end up forming a sizeable part of investment returns. Historically, CEI Limited (SGX:AVV) has paid a dividend to shareholders. It currently yields 8.7%. Should it have a place in your portfolio? Let's take a look at CEI in more detail.

Check out our latest analysis for CEI

5 questions to ask before buying a dividend stock

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

• Is its annual yield among the top 25% of dividend-paying companies?
• Has it paid dividend every year without dramatically reducing payout in the past?
• Has it increased its dividend per share amount over the past?
• Can it afford to pay the current rate of dividends from its earnings?
• Based on future earnings growth, will it be able to continue to payout dividend at the current rate?

How does CEI fare?

CEI has a trailing twelve-month payout ratio of 19%, 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. Cash flow is important because companies with strong cash flow can usually sustain higher payout ratios.

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. Although AVV's per share payments have increased in the past 10 years, it has not been a completely smooth ride. Investors have seen reductions in the dividend per share in the past, although, it has picked up again.

Relative to peers, CEI produces a yield of 8.7%, which is high for Electronic stocks.

Next Steps:

Taking into account the dividend metrics, CEI ticks most of the boxes as a strong dividend investment, putting it in my list of top dividend payers. 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 factors you should further examine:

1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for AVV’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for AVV’s outlook.
2. Historical Performance: What has AVV's returns been like over the past? Go into more detail in the past track record analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of our analysis for more clarity.
3. Other Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.

Simply Wall St analyst Simply Wall St and Simply Wall St have no position in any of the companies mentioned. This article is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.