A large part of investment returns can be generated by dividend-paying stock given their role in compounding returns over time. In the past 10 years APN Property Group Limited (ASX:APD) has returned an average of 7.00% per year to investors in the form of dividend payouts. Let’s dig deeper into whether APN Property Group should have a place in your portfolio. Check out our latest analysis for APN Property Group

Here’s how I find good dividend stocks

If you are a dividend investor, you should always assess these five key metrics:

• Is it the top 25% annual dividend yield payer?

• Has it paid dividend every year without dramatically reducing payout in the past?

• Has the amount of dividend per share grown over the past?

• Does earnings amply cover its dividend payments?

• Will the company be able to keep paying dividend based on the future earnings growth?

How does APN Property Group fare?

The company currently pays out 71.60% of its earnings as a dividend, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. Going forward, analysts expect APD’s payout to increase to 81.25% of its earnings, which leads to a dividend yield of 5.63%.

If there is one thing that you want to be reliable in your life, it’s dividend stocks and their constant income stream. Not only have dividend payouts from APN Property Group 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, APN Property Group has a yield of 4.60%, which is high for capital markets stocks but still below the market’s top dividend payers.

Next Steps:

If you are building an income portfolio, then APN Property Group is a complicated choice since it has some positive aspects as well as negative ones. 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. I’ve put together three fundamental factors you should further examine:

1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for APD’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for APD’s outlook.

2. Valuation: What is APD 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 APD is currently mispriced by the market.