2 Days Left To Cash In On United Fire Group Inc (NASDAQ:UFCS) Dividend, Should Investors Buy?
Shares of United Fire Group Inc (NASDAQ:UFCS) will begin trading ex-dividend in 2 days. To qualify for the dividend check of US$0.31 per share, investors must have owned the shares prior to 30 August 2018, which is the last day the company’s management will finalize their list of shareholders to which they will send dividend payments. Investors looking for higher income-generating stocks to add to their portfolio should keep reading, as I take a deeper dive into United Fire Group’s latest financial data to analyse its dividend attributes.
View our latest analysis for United Fire Group
5 questions to ask before buying a dividend stock
If you are a dividend investor, you should always assess these five key metrics:
Is it the top 25% annual dividend yield payer?
Has it consistently paid a stable dividend without missing a payment or drastically cutting payout?
Has the amount of dividend per share grown over the past?
Is its earnings sufficient to payout dividend at the current rate?
Will it have the ability to keep paying its dividends going forward?
Does United Fire Group pass our checks?
United Fire Group has a trailing twelve-month payout ratio of 61.4%, 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 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. In the case of UFCS it has increased its DPS from $0.60 to $1.24 in the past 10 years. During this period it has not missed a payment, as one would expect for a company increasing its dividend. These are all positive signs of a great, reliable dividend stock.
In terms of its peers, United Fire Group produces a yield of 2.4%, which is on the low-side for Insurance stocks.
Next Steps:
Keeping in mind the dividend characteristics above, United Fire Group is definitely worth considering for investors looking to build a dedicated income portfolio. 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. I’ve put together three key aspects you should further examine:
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for UFCS’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for UFCS’s outlook.
Valuation: What is UFCS 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 UFCS is currently mispriced by the market.
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.
