Yahoo Finance Are You Looking for a High-Growth Dividend Stock?
All investors love getting big returns from their portfolio, whether it's through stocks, bonds, ETFs, or other types of securities. However, when you're an income investor, your primary focus is generating consistent cash flow from each of your liquid investments.
Cash flow can come from bond interest, interest from other types of investments, and of course, dividends. A dividend is the distribution of a company's earnings paid out to shareholders; it's often viewed by its dividend yield, a metric that measures a dividend as a percent of the current stock price. Many academic studies show that dividends account for significant portions of long-term returns, with dividend contributions exceeding one-third of total returns in many cases.
Caterpillar in Focus
Headquartered in Irving, Caterpillar (CAT) is an Industrial Products stock that has seen a price change of -13.51% so far this year. The construction equipment company is paying out a dividend of $1.2 per share at the moment, with a dividend yield of 2.32% compared to the Manufacturing - Construction and Mining industry's yield of 1.31% and the S&P 500's yield of 1.78%.
Looking at dividend growth, the company's current annualized dividend of $4.80 is up 3.9% from last year. Caterpillar has increased its dividend 4 times on a year-over-year basis over the last 5 years for an average annual increase of 8.19%. Any future dividend growth will depend on both earnings growth and the company's payout ratio; a payout ratio is the proportion of a firm's annual earnings per share that it pays out as a dividend. Caterpillar's current payout ratio is 30%. This means it paid out 30% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.
Earnings growth looks solid for CAT for this fiscal year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2023 is $17.46 per share, representing a year-over-year earnings growth rate of 26.16%.
Bottom Line
Investors like dividends for a variety of different reasons, from tax advantages and decreasing overall portfolio risk to considerably improving stock investing profits. However, not all companies offer a quarterly payout.
Big, established firms that have more secure profits are often seen as the best dividend options, but it's fairly uncommon to see high-growth businesses or tech start-ups offer their stockholders a dividend. During periods of rising interest rates, income investors must be mindful that high-yielding stocks tend to struggle. That said, they can take comfort from the fact that CAT is not only an attractive dividend play, but also represents a compelling investment opportunity with a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).
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Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) : Free Stock Analysis Report
