If you are interested in cashing in on Ascendas India Trust’s (SGX:CY6U) upcoming dividend of SGD0.01 per share, you only have 3 days left to buy the shares before its ex-dividend date, 15 May 2018, in time for dividends payable on the 25 May 2018. Is this future income a persuasive enough catalyst for investors to think about Ascendas India Trust 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. View our latest analysis for Ascendas India Trust

5 checks you should do on a dividend stock

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

• Is their annual yield among the top 25% 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 its earnings sufficient to payout dividend at the current rate?

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

Does Ascendas India Trust pass our checks?

Ascendas India Trust has a trailing twelve-month payout ratio of 39.42%, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. In the near future, analysts are predicting a higher payout ratio of 88.15%, leading to a dividend yield of 6.18%. However, EPS is forecasted to fall to SGD0.07 in the upcoming year. Therefore, although payout is expected to increase, the fall in earnings may not equate to higher dividend income. Reliablity is an important factor for dividend stocks, particularly for income investors who want a strong track record of payment and a positive outlook for future payout. Not only have dividend payouts from Ascendas India Trust 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. Relative to peers, Ascendas India Trust has a yield of 5.76%, which is high for Real Estate stocks.

Next Steps:

With these dividend metrics in mind, I definitely rank Ascendas India Trust as a strong income stock, and is worth further research for anyone who considers dividends an important part of their portfolio strategy. 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. Below, I’ve compiled three key factors you should further research:

1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for CY6U’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for CY6U’s outlook.

2. Valuation: What is CY6U 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 CY6U is currently mispriced by the market.

3. Other 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 pass 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.