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Regular readers will know that we love our dividends at Simply Wall St, which is why it's exciting to see TowneBank (NASDAQ:TOWN) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next three days. The ex-dividend date is one business day before the record date, which is the cut-off date for shareholders to be present on the company's books to be eligible for a dividend payment. 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. Therefore, if you purchase TowneBank's shares on or after the 31st of March, you won't be eligible to receive the dividend, when it is paid on the 11th of April.
The company's next dividend payment will be US$0.25 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed US$1.00 to shareholders. Looking at the last 12 months of distributions, TowneBank has a trailing yield of approximately 2.8% on its current stock price of US$35.17. 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 TowneBank has been able to grow its dividends, or if the dividend might be cut.
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. TowneBank paid out a comfortable 46% of its profit last year.
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.
Check out our latest analysis for TowneBank
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. This is why it's a relief to see TowneBank earnings per share are up 2.5% per annum over the last five years.
The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. In the last 10 years, TowneBank has lifted its dividend by approximately 8.6% a year on average. We're glad to see dividends rising alongside earnings over a number of years, which may be a sign the company intends to share the growth with shareholders.