Be Sure To Check Out East West Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:EWBC) Before It Goes Ex-Dividend

It looks like East West Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:EWBC) is about to go ex-dividend in the next four days. Ex-dividend means that investors that purchase the stock on or after the 30th of October will not receive this dividend, which will be paid on the 16th of November.

East West Bancorp's next dividend payment will be US$0.28 per share, on the back of last year when the company paid a total of US$1.10 to shareholders. Last year's total dividend payments show that East West Bancorp has a trailing yield of 2.9% on the current share price of $38.36. Dividends are a major contributor to investment returns for long term holders, but only if the dividend continues to be paid. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.

View our latest analysis for East West Bancorp

Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned in profit, then the dividend could be unsustainable. That's why it's good to see East West Bancorp paying out a modest 27% of its earnings.

When a company paid out less in dividends than it earned in profit, this generally suggests its dividend is affordable. The lower the % of its profit that it pays out, the greater the margin of safety for the dividend if the business enters a downturn.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Businesses with strong growth prospects usually make the best dividend payers, because it's easier to grow dividends when earnings per share are improving. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. For this reason, we're glad to see East West Bancorp's earnings per share have risen 11% per annum over the last five years.

Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. In the past 10 years, East West Bancorp has increased its dividend at approximately 39% a year on average. Both per-share earnings and dividends have both been growing rapidly in recent times, which is great to see.

To Sum It Up

Should investors buy East West Bancorp for the upcoming dividend? Typically, companies that are growing rapidly and paying out a low fraction of earnings are keeping the profits for reinvestment in the business. Perhaps even more importantly - this can sometimes signal management is focused on the long term future of the business. In summary, East West Bancorp appears to have some promise as a dividend stock, and we'd suggest taking a closer look at it.

Ever wonder what the future holds for East West Bancorp? See what the nine analysts we track are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow

If you're in the market for dividend stocks, we recommend checking our list of top dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend.

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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. 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. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
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