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Prosperity Bancshares (PB) Could Be a Great Choice

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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 the distribution of a company's earnings paid out to shareholders; it's often viewed by its dividend yield, a metric that measures a 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.

Prosperity Bancshares in Focus

Prosperity Bancshares (PB - Free Report) is headquartered in Houston, and is in the Finance sector. The stock has seen a price change of -8.67% since the start of the year. The financial holding company is currently shelling out a dividend of $0.56 per share, with a dividend yield of 3.62%. This compares to the Banks - Southwest industry's yield of 0.73% and the S&P 500's yield of 1.58%.

Taking a look at the company's dividend growth, its current annualized dividend of $2.24 is up 1.4% from last year. Prosperity Bancshares has increased its dividend 5 times on a year-over-year basis over the last 5 years for an average annual increase of 6.44%. 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. Prosperity Bancshares's current payout ratio is 47%. This means it paid out 47% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.

Looking at this fiscal year, PB expects solid earnings growth. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2024 is $5.01 per share, which represents a year-over-year growth rate of 0.80%.

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. But, not every company offers a quarterly payout.

For instance, it's a rare occurrence when a tech start-up or big growth business offers their shareholders a dividend. It's more common to see larger companies with more established profits give out dividends. During periods of rising interest rates, income investors must be mindful that high-yielding stocks tend to struggle. With that in mind, PB is a compelling investment opportunity. Not only is it a strong dividend play, but the stock currently sits at a Zacks Rank of 3 (Hold).


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