4 Days Left Before Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Corporation Limited (NZSE:FPH) Will Be Trading Ex-Dividend
Have you been keeping an eye on Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Corporation Limited’s (NZSE:FPH) upcoming dividend of NZ$0.11 per share payable on the 21 December 2018? Then you only have 4 days left before the stock starts trading ex-dividend on the 07 December 2018. Should you diversify into Fisher & Paykel Healthcare and boost your portfolio income stream? Well, keep on reading because today, I’m going to look at the latest data and analyze the stock and its dividend property in further detail.
See our latest analysis for Fisher & Paykel Healthcare
5 questions to ask before buying a dividend stock
Whenever I am looking at a potential dividend stock investment, I always check these five metrics:
Is it the top 25% annual dividend yield payer?
Has it paid dividend every year without dramatically reducing payout in the past?
Has dividend per share amount increased over the past?
Does earnings amply cover its dividend payments?
Based on future earnings growth, will it be able to continue to payout dividend at the current rate?
Does Fisher & Paykel Healthcare pass our checks?
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare has a trailing twelve-month payout ratio of 62%, meaning the dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. In the near future, analysts are predicting a higher payout ratio of 71%, leading to a dividend yield of around 2.3%. In addition to this, EPS should increase to NZ$0.39. The higher payout forecasted, along with higher earnings, should lead to greater dividend income for investors moving forward.
When assessing the forecast sustainability of a dividend it is also worth considering the cash flow of the business. Cash flow is important because companies with strong cash flow can usually sustain higher payout ratios.
If there’s one type of stock you want to be reliable, it’s dividend stocks and their stable income-generating ability. Not only have dividend payouts from Fisher & Paykel Healthcare fallen over the past 10 years, it has also been highly volatile during this time, with drops of over 25% in some years. This means that dividend hunters should probably steer clear of the stock, at least for now until the track record improves.
In terms of its peers, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare has a yield of 1.6%, which is high for Medical Equipment stocks but still below the low risk savings rate.
Next Steps:
Now you know to keep in mind the reason why investors should be careful investing in Fisher & Paykel Healthcare for the dividend. But if you are not exclusively a dividend investor, the stock could still be an interesting investment opportunity. 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. Below, I’ve compiled three relevant factors you should further examine:
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for FPH’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for FPH’s outlook.
Valuation: What is FPH 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 FPH is currently mispriced by the market.
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.