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Are You Looking for a High-Growth Dividend Stock?

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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. But for income investors, generating consistent cash flow from each of your liquid investments is your primary focus.

Cash flow can come from bond interest, interest from other types of investments, and of course, 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.

Home BancShares in Focus

Based in Conway, Home BancShares (HOMB - Free Report) is in the Finance sector, and so far this year, shares have seen a price change of 9.22%. The bank holding company is currently shelling out a dividend of $0.19 per share, with a dividend yield of 2.52%. This compares to the Banks - Southeast industry's yield of 2.26% and the S&P 500's yield of 1.49%.

Taking a look at the company's dividend growth, its current annualized dividend of $0.78 is up 4% from last year. Home BancShares has increased its dividend 4 times on a year-over-year basis over the last 5 years for an average annual increase of 9.70%. 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. Home BancShares's current payout ratio is 39%, meaning it paid out 39% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.

Earnings growth looks solid for HOMB for this fiscal year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 is $2.19 per share, with earnings expected to increase 8.96% from the year ago period.

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.

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. That said, they can take comfort from the fact that HOMB 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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