Only 4 Days Left Until Southern Missouri Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:SMBC) Trades Ex-Dividend,
Shares of Southern Missouri Bancorp Inc (NASDAQ:SMBC) will begin trading ex-dividend in 4 days. To qualify for the dividend check of US$0.13 per share, investors must have owned the shares prior to 14 November 2018, which is the last day the company’s management will finalize their list of shareholders to which they will send dividend payments. Is this future income stream a compelling catalyst for dividend investors to think about the stock as an investment today? Let’s take a look at Southern Missouri Bancorp’s most recent financial data to examine its dividend characteristics in more detail.
See our latest analysis for Southern Missouri Bancorp
5 questions I ask before picking a dividend stock
When assessing a stock as a potential addition to my dividend Portfolio, I look at these five areas:
Is it paying an annual yield above 75% of dividend payers?
Has it consistently paid a stable dividend without missing a payment or drastically cutting payout?
Has dividend per share risen in the past couple of years?
Is is able to pay the current rate of dividends from its earnings?
Will it have the ability to keep paying its dividends going forward?
How well does Southern Missouri Bancorp fit our criteria?
Southern Missouri Bancorp has a trailing twelve-month payout ratio of 18%, meaning the dividend is sufficiently 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.
When assessing the forecast sustainability of a dividend it is also worth considering the cash flow of the business. Companies with strong cash flow can sustain a higher payout ratio, while companies with weaker cash flow generally cannot.
If there is one thing that you want to be reliable in your life, it’s dividend stocks and their constant income stream. In the case of SMBC it has increased its DPS from $0.24 to $0.52 in the past 10 years. During this period it has not missed a payment, as one would expect for a company increasing its dividend. This is an impressive feat, which makes SMBC a true dividend rockstar.
Relative to peers, Southern Missouri Bancorp produces a yield of 1.5%, which is on the low-side for Mortgage stocks.
Next Steps:
Taking into account the dividend metrics, Southern Missouri Bancorp ticks most of the boxes as a strong dividend investment, putting it in my list of top dividend payers. 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. There are three important factors you should further examine:
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for SMBC’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for SMBC’s outlook.
Valuation: What is SMBC 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 SMBC is currently mispriced by the market.
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 past 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. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
