Only 3 Days Left To Cash In On Marlin Business Services Corp (NASDAQ:MRLN) Dividend, Should Investors Buy?
Investors who want to cash in on Marlin Business Services Corp’s (NASDAQ:MRLN) upcoming dividend of $0.14 per share have only 3 days left to buy the shares before its ex-dividend date, 09 February 2018, in time for dividends payable on the 22 February 2018. Should you diversify into Marlin Business Services and boost your portfolio income stream? Well, keep on reading because today, I’m going to look at the latest data and analyze the stock and its dividend property in further detail. Check out our latest analysis for Marlin Business Services
Here’s how I find good dividend stocks
Whenever I am looking at a potential dividend stock investment, I always check these five metrics:
Is their annual yield among the top 25% of dividend payers?
Has it consistently paid a stable dividend without missing a payment or drastically cutting payout?
Has dividend per share amount increased over the past?
Can it afford to pay the current rate of dividends from its earnings?
Based on future earnings growth, will it be able to continue to payout dividend at the current rate?
How well does Marlin Business Services fit our criteria?
Marlin Business Services has a trailing twelve-month payout ratio of 27.74%, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. In the near future, analysts are predicting lower payout ratio of 22.45%, leading to a dividend yield of around 2.33%. Furthermore, EPS is also forecasted to fall to $1.82 in the upcoming year. The lower EPS on top of a lower payout ratio will lead to a fall in dividend payment moving forward. If there’s one type of stock you want to be reliable, it’s dividend stocks and their stable income-generating ability. The reality is that it is too early to consider Marlin Business Services as a dividend investment. It has only been consistently paying dividends for 6 years, however, standard practice for reliable payers is to look for a 10-year minimum track record. In terms of its peers, Marlin Business Services produces a yield of 2.18%, which is on the low-side for Diversified Financial stocks.
Next Steps:
After digging a little deeper into Marlin Business Services’s yield, it’s easy to see why you should be cautious investing in the company just for the dividend. But if you are not exclusively a dividend investor, the stock could still be an interesting investment opportunity. 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 look at:
1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for MRLN’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for MRLN’s outlook.
2. Valuation: What is MRLN 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 MRLN is currently mispriced by the market.
3. 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.
