A sizeable part of portfolio returns can be produced by dividend stocks due to their contribution to compounding returns in the long run. Recently, Morris Holdings Limited (HKG:1575) has started paying dividends to shareholders. Today it yields 9.7%. Does Morris Holdings tick all the boxes of a great dividend stock? Below, I’ll take you through my analysis.

Check out our latest analysis for Morris Holdings

5 checks you should do on a dividend stock

Whenever I am looking at a potential dividend stock investment, I always check these five metrics:

• 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 it increased its dividend per share amount over the past?

• Is its earnings sufficient to payout dividend at the current rate?

• Will it be able to continue to payout at the current rate in the future?

Does Morris Holdings pass our checks?

The current trailing twelve-month payout ratio for the stock is 25%, meaning the dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Furthermore, analysts have not forecasted a dividends per share for the future, which makes it hard to determine the yield shareholders should expect, and whether the current payout is sustainable, moving forward.

If you want to dive deeper into the sustainability of a certain payout ratio, you may wish to consider the cash flow of the business. Companies with strong cash flow can sustain a higher payout ratio, while companies with weaker cash flow generally cannot.

If there is one thing that you want to be reliable in your life, it’s dividend stocks and their constant income stream. The reality is that it is too early to consider Morris Holdings as a dividend investment. Last year was the company’s first dividend payment, so it is certainly early days. The standard practice for reliable payers is to look for 10 or so years of track record.

In terms of its peers, Morris Holdings has a yield of 9.7%, which is high for Consumer Durables stocks.

Next Steps:

If you are building an income portfolio, then Morris Holdings is a complicated choice since it has some positive aspects as well as negative ones. But if you are not exclusively a dividend investor, the stock could still be an interesting investment opportunity. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, I urge potential investors to try and get a good understanding of the underlying business and its fundamentals before deciding on an investment. There are three pertinent aspects you should further examine: