Only 3 Days Left To Cash In On Avista Corporation (NYSE:AVA) Dividend, Is It Worth Buying?

If you are interested in cashing in on Avista Corporation's (NYSE:AVA) upcoming dividend of $0.37 per share, you only have 3 days left to buy the shares before its ex-dividend date, 22 February 2018, in time for dividends payable on the 15 March 2018. 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 Avista's most recent financial data to examine its dividend characteristics in more detail. See our latest analysis for Avista

How I analyze a dividend stock

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

• Does it pay an annual yield higher than 75% of dividend payers?
• 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?
• Does earnings amply cover its dividend payments?
• Will the company be able to keep paying dividend based on the future earnings growth?

How does Avista fare?

Avista has a trailing twelve-month payout ratio of 70.89%, meaning the dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Going forward, analysts expect AVA's payout to remain around the same level at 64.87% of its earnings, which leads to a dividend yield of around 3.03%. Moreover, EPS should increase to $2.02. If there's one type of stock you want to be reliable, it's dividend stocks and their stable income-generating ability. AVA has increased its DPS from $0.6 to $1.49 in the past 10 years. It has also been paying out dividend consistently during this time, as you'd expect for a company increasing its dividend levels. This is an impressive feat, which makes AVA a true dividend rockstar. Compared to its peers, Avista generates a yield of 2.97%, which is on the low-side for Integrated Utilities stocks.

Next Steps:

With this in mind, I definitely rank Avista as a strong dividend stock, and makes it worth further research for anyone who likes steady income generation from their portfolio. 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 relevant factors you should further examine:

• 1. Historical Performance: What has AVA'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.
• 2. Management Team: An experienced management team on the helm increases our confidence in the business – take a look at who sits on Avista’s board and the CEO’s back ground.
• 3. Other Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here.

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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.