Is Horizon Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:HBNC) A Smart Choice For Dividend Investors?

Dividends play a key role in compounding returns over time and can form a large part of our portfolio return. In the past 10 years Horizon Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:HBNC) has returned an average of 3.00% per year to investors in the form of dividend payouts. Does Horizon Bancorp tick all the boxes of a great dividend stock? Below, I’ll take you through my analysis. View our latest analysis for Horizon Bancorp

How I analyze 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 the amount of dividend per share grown over the past?

• Is it able 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?

NasdaqGS:HBNC Historical Dividend Yield Jun 5th 18

How well does Horizon Bancorp fit our criteria?

The company currently pays out 34.20% of its earnings as a dividend, according to its trailing twelve-month data, 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 HBNC it has increased its DPS from $0.18 to $0.6 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, Horizon Bancorp has a yield of 1.87%, which is on the low-side for Banks stocks.

Next Steps:

With these dividend metrics in mind, I definitely rank Horizon Bancorp as a strong income stock, and is worth further research for anyone who considers dividends an important part of their portfolio strategy. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, I urge potential investors to try and get a good understanding of the underlying business and its fundamentals before deciding on an investment. Below, I’ve compiled three key aspects you should further research:

1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for HBNC’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for HBNC’s outlook.

2. Valuation: What is HBNC 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 HBNC is currently mispriced by the market.

3. 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 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.