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Some investors rely on dividends for growing their wealth, and if you're one of those dividend sleuths, you might be intrigued to know that CDW Corporation (NASDAQ:CDW) is about to go ex-dividend in just 4 days. If you purchase the stock on or after the 23rd of August, you won't be eligible to receive this dividend, when it is paid on the 10th of September.
CDW's next dividend payment will be US$0.29 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed US$1.18 to shareholders. Last year's total dividend payments show that CDW has a trailing yield of 1.1% on the current share price of $111.69. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.
View our latest analysis for CDW
If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. CDW has a low and conservative payout ratio of just 23% of its income after tax. Yet cash flows are even more important than profits for assessing a dividend, so we need to see if the company generated enough cash to pay its distribution. What's good is that dividends were well covered by free cash flow, with the company paying out 18% of its cash flow last year.
It's positive to see that CDW's dividend is covered by both profits and cash flow, since this is generally a sign that the dividend is sustainable, and a lower payout ratio usually suggests a greater margin of safety before the dividend gets cut.
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. If earnings decline and the company is forced to cut its dividend, investors could watch the value of their investment go up in smoke. It's encouraging to see CDW has grown its earnings rapidly, up 41% a year for the past five years. CDW looks like a real growth company, with earnings per share growing at a cracking pace and the company reinvesting most of its profits in the business.
Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. CDW has delivered 38% dividend growth per year on average over the past 6 years. Both per-share earnings and dividends have both been growing rapidly in recent times, which is great to see.