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Are You Looking for a High-Growth Dividend Stock?

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Getting big returns from financial portfolios, whether through stocks, bonds, ETFs, other securities, or a combination of all, is an investor's dream. But for income investors, generating consistent cash flow from each of your liquid investments is your primary focus.

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 account for significant portions of long-term returns, with dividend contributions exceeding one-third of total returns in many cases.

Summit Financial in Focus

Summit Financial is headquartered in Moorefield, and is in the Finance sector. The stock has seen a price change of -0.22% since the start of the year. The financial holding company is paying out a dividend of $0.18 per share at the moment, with a dividend yield of 2.63% compared to the Banks - Southeast industry's yield of 2.09% and the S&P 500's yield of 1.53%.

Taking a look at the company's dividend growth, its current annualized dividend of $0.72 is up 2.9% from last year. Over the last 5 years, Summit Financial has increased its dividend 4 times on a year-over-year basis for an average annual increase of 11.66%. 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. Summit Financial's current payout ratio is 20%, meaning it paid out 20% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.

Earnings growth looks solid for SMMF for this fiscal year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2022 is $3.89 per share, which represents a year-over-year growth rate of 12.10%.

Bottom Line

Investors like dividends for a variety of different reasons, from tax advantages and decreasing overall portfolio risk to considerably improving stock investing profits. It's important to keep in mind that not all companies provide 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. 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, SMMF presents a compelling investment opportunity; it's not only an attractive dividend play, but the stock also boasts a strong Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

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