Murgitroyd Group PLC (LON:MUR): Dividend Is Coming In 3 Days, Should You Buy?
Attention dividend hunters! Murgitroyd Group PLC (AIM:MUR) will be distributing its dividend of £0.07 per share on the 23 March 2018, and will start trading ex-dividend in 3 days time on the 15 February 2018. Investors looking for higher income-generating stocks to add to their portfolio should keep reading, as I take a deeper dive into Murgitroyd Group’s latest financial data to analyse its dividend attributes. View our latest analysis for Murgitroyd Group
5 checks you should do on a dividend stock
Whenever I am looking at a potential dividend stock investment, I always check these five metrics:
Does it pay an annual yield higher than 75% of dividend payers?
Has it paid dividend every year without dramatically reducing payout in the past?
Has dividend per share amount increased over the past?
Is its earnings sufficient to payout dividend at the current rate?
Will the company be able to keep paying dividend based on the future earnings growth?
How does Murgitroyd Group fare?
The current trailing twelve-month payout ratio for the stock is 61.73%, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. In the near future, analysts are predicting a payout ratio of 60.26%, leading to a dividend yield of 3.92%.
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. In the case of MUR it has increased its DPS from £0.06 to £0.17 in the past 10 years. It has also been paying out dividend consistently during this time, as you’d expect for a company increasing its dividend levels. These are all positive signs of a great, reliable dividend stock. Compared to its peers, Murgitroyd Group has a yield of 3.24%, which is high for Professional Services stocks but still below the market’s top dividend payers.
Next Steps:
With these dividend metrics in mind, I definitely rank Murgitroyd Group 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, 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. I’ve put together three fundamental aspects you should look at:
1. Valuation: What is MUR 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 MUR is currently mispriced by the market.
2. Management Team: An experienced management team on the helm increases our confidence in the business – take a look at who sits on Murgitroyd Group’s board and the CEO’s back ground.
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.
