This is Why Essa Bancorp (ESSA) is a Great Dividend Stock
Whether it's through stocks, bonds, ETFs, or other types of securities, all investors love seeing their portfolios score big returns. However, 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 that coveted distribution of a company's earnings paid out to shareholders, and investors often view it by its dividend yield, a metric that measures the 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.
Essa Bancorp in Focus
Headquartered in Stroudsburg, Essa Bancorp (ESSA) is a Finance stock that has seen a price change of 10% so far this year. The bank is paying out a dividend of $0.12 per share at the moment, with a dividend yield of 2.91% compared to the Financial - Savings and Loan industry's yield of 2.47% and the S&P 500's yield of 1.34%.
In terms of dividend growth, the company's current annualized dividend of $0.48 is up 2.1% from last year. Essa Bancorp has increased its dividend 3 times on a year-over-year basis over the last 5 years for an average annual increase of 7.39%. 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. Essa Bancorp's current payout ratio is 29%, meaning it paid out 29% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.
Earnings growth looks solid for ESSA for this fiscal year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2021 is $1.73 per share, representing a year-over-year earnings growth rate of 4.85%.
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.
Big, established firms that have more secure profits are often seen as the best dividend options, but it's fairly uncommon to see high-growth businesses or tech start-ups offer their stockholders a dividend. During periods of rising interest rates, income investors must be mindful that high-yielding stocks tend to struggle. That said, they can take comfort from the fact that ESSA is not only an attractive dividend play, but also represents a compelling investment opportunity with a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
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