3 Days Left To Columbia Property Trust Inc (CXP)’s Ex-Dividend Date, Should Investors Buy?
On the 04 January 2018, Columbia Property Trust Inc (NYSE:CXP) will be paying shareholders an upcoming dividend amount of $0.2 per share. However, investors must have bought the company’s stock before 30 November 2017 in order to qualify for the payment. That means you have only 3 days left! Is this future income stream a compelling catalyst for dividend investors to think about CXP as an investment today? Let’s take a look at CXP’s most recent financial data to examine its dividend characteristics in more detail. View our latest analysis for Columbia Property Trust
5 checks you should do on a dividend stock
If you are a dividend investor, you should always assess these five key metrics:
Is its annual yield among the top 25% of dividend-paying companies?
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 it be able to continue to payout at the current rate in the future?
How well does Columbia Property Trust fit our criteria?
The company currently pays out 53.54% of its earnings as a dividend, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. Furthermore, analysts are forecasting the payout ratio to exceed earnings going forward, leading to a future of uncertainty around the stability of CXP’s dividend income. Reliablity is an important factor for dividend stocks, particularly for income investors who want a strong track record of payment and a positive outlook for future payout. The reality is that it is too early to consider Columbia Property Trust as a dividend investment. It has only been consistently paying dividends for 4 years, however, standard practice for reliable payers is to look for a 10-year minimum track record. In terms of its peers, CXP generates a yield of 3.50%, which is on the low-side for equity real estate investment trusts (reits) stocks.
What this means for you:
Are you a shareholder? Whilst there are few things you may like about Columbia Property Trust from a dividend stock perspective, the truth is that overall it probably is not the best choice for a dividend investor. It may be beneficial exploring other dividend stocks as alternatives to CXP or even look at high-growth stocks to complement your steady income stocks. I suggest continuing your research by exploring my interactive free list of dividend rockstars as well as high-growth stocks to potentially add to your holdings.
Are you a potential investor? If you are building an income portfolio, then Columbia Property Trust is a complicated choice since it has some positive aspects as well as negative ones. However, if you are not strictly just a dividend investor, CXP could still offer some interesting investment opportunities. As always, I urge potential investors to try and get a good understanding of the underlying business and its fundamentals before deciding on an investment. Dig deeping in our latest free fundmental analysis to explore other aspects of CXP.
To help readers see pass 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.
