Yahoo Finance Metlifecare Limited (NZSE:MET): Ex-Dividend Is In 3 Days
Shares of Metlifecare Limited (NZSE:MET) will begin trading ex-dividend in 3 days. To qualify for the dividend check of NZ$0.068 per share, investors must have owned the shares prior to 13 September 2018, which is the last day the company’s management will finalize their list of shareholders to which they will send dividend payments. Is this future income a persuasive enough catalyst for investors to think about Metlifecare as an investment today? Below, I’m going to look at the latest data and analyze the stock and its dividend property in further detail.
Check out our latest analysis for Metlifecare
How I analyze a dividend stock
Whenever I am looking at a potential dividend stock investment, I always check these five metrics:
Is it paying an annual yield above 75% of dividend payers?
Does it consistently pay out dividends without missing a payment of significantly cutting payout?
Has dividend per share amount increased over the past?
Is is able to pay the current rate of dividends from its earnings?
Will it be able to continue to payout at the current rate in the future?
How well does Metlifecare fit our criteria?
The company currently pays out 17.0% of its earnings as a dividend, according to its trailing twelve-month data, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. In the near future, analysts are predicting a higher payout ratio of 27.7%, leading to a dividend yield of around 2.2%. In addition to this, EPS should increase to NZ$0.60. 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. A company with strong cash flow, relative to earnings, can sometimes sustain a high pay out ratio.
If dividend is a key criteria in your investment consideration, then you need to make sure the dividend stock you’re eyeing out is reliable in its payments. Not only have dividend payouts from Metlifecare fallen over the past 10 years, it has also been highly volatile during this time, with drops of over 25% in some years. These characteristics do not bode well for income investors seeking reliable stream of dividends.
Relative to peers, Metlifecare generates a yield of 1.6%, which is on the low-side for Healthcare stocks.
Next Steps:
After digging a little deeper into Metlifecare’s yield, it’s easy to see why you should be cautious investing in the company just 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 recommend taking sufficient time to understand its core business and determine whether the company and its investment properties suit your overall goals. There are three pertinent aspects you should look at:
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for MET’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for MET’s outlook.
Historical Performance: What has MET’s returns been like over the past? Go into more detail in the past track record analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of our analysis for more clarity.
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.
