Central Valley Community Bancorp (NASDAQ:CVCY) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in three days. The ex-dividend date is usually set to be one business day before the record date which is the cut-off date on which you must be present on the company's books as a shareholder in order to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is important because any transaction on a stock needs to have been settled before the record date in order to be eligible for a dividend. Meaning, you will need to purchase Central Valley Community Bancorp's shares before the 4th of August to receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 20th of August.

The company's next dividend payment will be US$0.12 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of US$0.48 per share. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Central Valley Community Bancorp has a trailing yield of 2.9% on the current stock price of $16.73. We love seeing companies pay a dividend, but it's also important to be sure that laying the golden eggs isn't going to kill our golden goose! So we need to investigate whether Central Valley Community Bancorp can afford its dividend, and if the dividend could grow.

See our latest analysis for Central Valley Community Bancorp

Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned in profit, then the dividend could be unsustainable. Central Valley Community Bancorp is paying out just 22% of its profit after tax, which is comfortably low and leaves plenty of breathing room in the case of adverse events.

When a company paid out less in dividends than it earned in profit, this generally suggests its dividend is affordable. The lower the % of its profit that it pays out, the greater the margin of safety for the dividend if the business enters a downturn.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Companies with consistently growing earnings per share generally make the best dividend stocks, as they usually find it easier to grow dividends per share. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. For this reason, we're glad to see Central Valley Community Bancorp's earnings per share have risen 11% per annum over the last five years.

Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. Since the start of our data, 10 years ago, Central Valley Community Bancorp has lifted its dividend by approximately 9.1% a year on average. It's encouraging to see the company lifting dividends while earnings are growing, suggesting at least some corporate interest in rewarding shareholders.