4 Days Left Until United-Guardian Inc (NASDAQ:UG) Trades Ex-Dividend
Investors who want to cash in on United-Guardian Inc’s (NASDAQ:UG) upcoming dividend of US$0.55 per share have only 4 days left to buy the shares before its ex-dividend date, 07 December 2018, in time for dividends payable on the 17 December 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 United-Guardian’s most recent financial data to examine its dividend characteristics in more detail.
View our latest analysis for United-Guardian
5 checks you should use to assess a dividend stock
If you are a dividend investor, you should always assess these five key metrics:
Is their annual yield among the top 25% of dividend payers?
Does it consistently pay out dividends without missing a payment of significantly cutting payout?
Has it increased its dividend per share amount 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 does United-Guardian fare?
The company currently pays out 96% of its earnings as a dividend, according to its trailing twelve-month data, which means that the dividend is not well-covered by its 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 you want to dive deeper into the sustainability of a certain payout ratio, you may wish to consider the cash flow of the business. A company with strong cash flow, relative to earnings, can sometimes sustain a high pay out ratio.
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. Whilst its per-share payments have increased during the past 10 years, there has been some hiccups. Investors have seen reductions in the dividend per share in the past, although, it has picked up again.
In terms of its peers, United-Guardian generates a yield of 6.3%, which is high for Personal Products stocks.
Next Steps:
If you are building an income portfolio, then United-Guardian 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, the stock could still offer some interesting investment opportunities. 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. There are three fundamental factors you should look at:
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for UG’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for UG’s outlook.
Valuation: What is UG 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 UG is currently mispriced by the market.
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.
