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Comerica Incorporated (NYSE:CMA) Passed Our Checks, And It's About To Pay A 1.1% Dividend

It looks like Comerica Incorporated (NYSE:CMA) is about to go ex-dividend in the next 4 days. You can purchase shares before the 12th of September in order to receive the dividend, which the company will pay on the 1st of October.

Comerica's upcoming dividend is US$0.67 a share, following on from the last 12 months, when the company distributed a total of US$2.68 per share to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Comerica has a trailing yield of 4.3% on the current stock price of $61.61. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether Comerica's dividend is reliable and sustainable. So we need to check whether the dividend payments are covered, and if earnings are growing.

See our latest analysis for Comerica

Dividends are typically paid out of company income, so if a company pays out more than it earned, its dividend is usually at a higher risk of being cut. Fortunately Comerica's payout ratio is modest, at just 32% of profit.

When a company paid out less in dividends than it earned in profit, this generally suggests its dividend is affordable. The lower the % of its profit that it pays out, the greater the margin of safety for the dividend if the business enters a downturn.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

NYSE:CMA Historical Dividend Yield, September 7th 2019
NYSE:CMA Historical Dividend Yield, September 7th 2019

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Businesses with strong growth prospects usually make the best dividend payers, because it's easier to grow dividends when earnings per share are improving. If earnings fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. It's encouraging to see Comerica has grown its earnings rapidly, up 22% a year for the past five years.

Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. Comerica has delivered an average of 7.3% per year annual increase in its dividend, based on the past 10 years of dividend payments. We're glad to see dividends rising alongside earnings over a number of years, which may be a sign the company intends to share the growth with shareholders.

Final Takeaway

Has Comerica got what it takes to maintain its dividend payments? When companies are growing rapidly and retaining a majority of the profits within the business, it's usually a sign that reinvesting earnings creates more value than paying dividends to shareholders. Perhaps even more importantly - this can sometimes signal management is focused on the long term future of the business. In summary, Comerica appears to have some promise as a dividend stock, and we'd suggest taking a closer look at it.

Ever wonder what the future holds for Comerica? See what the 20 analysts we track are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow

We wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see, though. Here's a list of interesting dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.

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