Investors who want to cash in on Just Group Plc’s (LSE:JUST) upcoming dividend of £0.01 per share have only 3 days left to buy the shares before its ex-dividend date, 02 November 2017, in time for dividends payable on the 24 November 2017. Should you diversify into JUST and boost your portfolio income stream? Well, keep on reading because today, I’m going to look at the latest data and analyze the stock and its dividend property in further detail. See our latest analysis for JUST

5 checks you should use to assess a dividend stock

When researching a dividend stock, I always follow the following screening criteria:

• Is it paying an annual yield above 75% of dividend payers?

• Has it consistently paid a stable dividend without missing a payment or drastically cutting payout?

• Has dividend per share risen in the past couple of years?

• Does earnings amply cover its dividend payments?

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

Does Just Group pass our checks?

The company currently pays out 73.45% of its earnings as a dividend, meaning the dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Looking forward, analysts expect JUST to pay out 23.54% of its earnings and dividends yield to be around 2.54%. In addition to this, EPS should increase to £0.15. This means the company should be able to continue to payout dividends. 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. Unfortunately, it is really too early to view Just Group as a dividend investment. It has only been consistently paying dividends for 3 years, however, standard practice for reliable payers is to look for a 10-year minimum track record. Relative to peers, Just Group produces a yield of 3.03%, which is on the low-side for a insurance stock.

What this means for you:

Are you a shareholder? Whilst there are few things you may like about Just Group from a dividend stock perspective, the truth is that overall it probably is not the best choice for a dividend investor. It may be beneficial exploring other income stocks as alternatives to JUST or even look at high-growth stocks to complement your steady income stocks. I encourage you to continue your research by taking a look at my interactive free list of dividend rockstars as well as high-growth stocks to potentially add to your holdings.

Are you a potential investor? If you are building an income portfolio, then Just 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, JUST could still be an interesting investment opportunity. I also recommend taking sufficient time to understand its core business and determine whether the company and its investment properties suit your overall goals. Check our latest free fundmental analysis to explore other aspects of JUST.

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.