3 Days Left To Murphy Oil Corporation (NYSE:MUR)’s Ex-Dividend Date, Should Investors Buy?
Important news for shareholders and potential investors in Murphy Oil Corporation (NYSE:MUR): The dividend payment of $0.25 per share will be distributed into shareholder on 01 June 2018, and the stock will begin trading ex-dividend at an earlier date, 11 May 2018. Is this future income a persuasive enough catalyst for investors to think about Murphy Oil as an investment today? Below, I’m going to look at the latest data and analyze the stock and its dividend property in further detail. View our latest analysis for Murphy Oil
5 checks you should use to assess a dividend stock
When researching a dividend stock, I always follow the following screening criteria:
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 the amount of dividend per share grown over the past?
Can it afford to pay the current rate of dividends from its earnings?
Will the company be able to keep paying dividend based on the future earnings growth?
How well does Murphy Oil fit our criteria?
Murphy Oil has a negative payout ratio, which means that it is loss-making, and paying its dividend from its retained earnings. 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. Although MUR’s per share payments have increased in the past 10 years, it has not been a completely smooth ride. Investors have seen reductions in the dividend per share in the past, although, it has picked up again. Relative to peers, Murphy Oil generates a yield of 3.43%, which is on the low-side for Oil and Gas stocks.
Next Steps:
If Murphy Oil is in your portfolio for cash-generating reasons, there may be better alternatives out there. However, if you are not strictly just a dividend investor, the stock could still offer some interesting investment opportunities. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, I recommend taking sufficient time to understand its core business and determine whether the company and its investment properties suit your overall goals. There are three fundamental aspects you should further research:
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for MUR’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for MUR’s outlook.
Historical Performance: What has MUR’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.
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 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.
