Lincoln National (LNC) is a Top Dividend Stock Right Now: Should You Buy?
All investors love getting big returns from their portfolio, whether it's through stocks, bonds, ETFs, or other types of securities. But when you're an income investor, your primary focus is generating consistent cash flow from each of your liquid investments.
While cash flow can come from bond interest or interest from other types of investments, income investors hone in on dividends. A dividend is the distribution of a company's earnings paid out to shareholders; it's often viewed by its dividend yield, a metric that measures a dividend as a percent of the current stock price. Many academic studies show that dividends make up large portions of long-term returns, and in many cases, dividend contributions surpass one-third of total returns.
Lincoln National in Focus
Lincoln National (LNC) is headquartered in Radnor, and is in the Finance sector. The stock has seen a price change of 26.37% since the start of the year. The insurance and retirement business is paying out a dividend of $0.37 per share at the moment, with a dividend yield of 2.28% compared to the Insurance - Life Insurance industry's yield of 0.74% and the S&P 500's yield of 1.88%.
In terms of dividend growth, the company's current annualized dividend of $1.48 is up 12.1% from last year. Over the last 5 years, Lincoln National has increased its dividend 5 times on a year-over-year basis for an average annual increase of 18.55%. Future dividend growth will depend on earnings growth as well as payout ratio, which is the proportion of a company's annual earnings per share that it pays out as a dividend. Lincoln National's current payout ratio is 17%. This means it paid out 17% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.
Earnings growth looks solid for LNC for this fiscal year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2019 is $9.29 per share, representing a year-over-year earnings growth rate of 9.55%.
Bottom Line
From greatly improving stock investing profits and reducing overall portfolio risk to providing tax advantages, investors like dividends for a variety of different reasons. However, not all companies offer a quarterly payout.
For instance, it's a rare occurrence when a tech start-up or big growth business offers their shareholders a dividend. It's more common to see larger companies with more established profits give out dividends. Income investors have to be mindful of the fact that high-yielding stocks tend to struggle during periods of rising interest rates. With that in mind, LNC is a compelling investment opportunity. Not only is it a strong dividend play, but the stock currently sits at a Zacks Rank of 3 (Hold).
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