In This Article:
WaFd, Inc. (NASDAQ:WAFD) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next four 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 an important date to be aware of as any purchase of the stock made on or after this date might mean a late settlement that doesn't show on the record date. Accordingly, WaFd investors that purchase the stock on or after the 23rd of May will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 6th of June.
The company's next dividend payment will be US$0.27 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of US$1.08 per share. Last year's total dividend payments show that WaFd has a trailing yield of 3.6% on the current share price of US$29.92. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. As a result, readers should always check whether WaFd has been able to grow its dividends, or if the dividend might be cut.
We check all companies for important risks. See what we found for WaFd in our free report.
If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. WaFd paid out a comfortable 40% of its profit last year.
Generally speaking, the lower a company's payout ratios, the more resilient its dividend usually is.
Check out our latest analysis for WaFd
Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.
Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?
Stocks with flat earnings can still be attractive dividend payers, but it is important to be more conservative with your approach and demand a greater margin for safety when it comes to dividend sustainability. If earnings fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. It's not encouraging to see that WaFd's earnings are effectively flat over the past five years. It's better than seeing them drop, certainly, but over the long term, all of the best dividend stocks are able to meaningfully grow their earnings per share.
The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. In the past 10 years, WaFd has increased its dividend at approximately 9.4% a year on average.
The Bottom Line
Should investors buy WaFd for the upcoming dividend? Earnings per share have been flat in recent years, although WaFd reinvests more than half its earnings in the business, which could suggest there are some growth projects that have not yet reached fruition. WaFd ticks a lot of boxes for us from a dividend perspective, and we think these characteristics should mark the company as deserving of further attention.