Should You Buy P&F Industries Inc (NASDAQ:PFIN) For Its Dividend?

A sizeable part of portfolio returns can be produced by dividend stocks due to their contribution to compounding returns in the long run. P&F Industries Inc (NASDAQ:PFIN) has recently paid dividends to shareholders, and currently yields 2.6%. Should it have a place in your portfolio? Let's take a look at P&F Industries in more detail.

View our latest analysis for P&F Industries

5 questions I ask before picking a dividend stock

When assessing a stock as a potential addition to my dividend Portfolio, I look at these five areas:

• Is it paying an annual yield above 75% of dividend payers?
• Has its dividend been stable over the past (i.e. no missed payments or significant payout cuts)?
• Has it increased its dividend per share amount over the past?
• Does earnings amply cover its dividend payments?
• Based on future earnings growth, will it be able to continue to payout dividend at the current rate?

How well does P&F Industries fit our criteria?

The current payout ratio for PFIN is negative, meaning that the company is not yet profitable and is paying dividend by dipping into its retained earnings.

When thinking about whether a dividend is sustainable, another factor to consider is the cash flow. A company with strong cash flow, relative to earnings, can sometimes sustain a high pay out ratio.

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 P&F Industries as a dividend investment. It has only been consistently paying dividends for 3 years, however, standard practice for reliable payers is to look for a 10-year minimum track record.

Compared to its peers, P&F Industries has a yield of 2.6%, which is high for Consumer Durables stocks but still below the market's top dividend payers.

Next Steps:

After digging a little deeper into P&F Industries's yield, it's easy to see why you should be cautious investing in the company just for the dividend. On the other hand, if you are not strictly just a dividend investor, the stock could still be offering some interesting investment opportunities. 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. I've put together three essential aspects you should further research:

1. Valuation: What is PFIN 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 PFIN is currently mispriced by the market.
2. Management Team: An experienced management team on the helm increases our confidence in the business – take a look at who sits on P&F Industries’s board and the CEO’s back ground.
3. 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.