Shares of Validus Holdings Ltd (NYSE:VR) will begin trading ex-dividend in 2 days. To qualify for the dividend check of $0.38 per share, investors must have owned the shares prior to 14 May 2018, which is the last day the company’s management will finalize their list of shareholders to which they will send dividend payments. Is this future income a persuasive enough catalyst for investors to think about Validus Holdings 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. Check out our latest analysis for Validus Holdings

Here’s how I find good dividend stocks

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

• 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 risen in the past couple of years?

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

• Will it have the ability to keep paying its dividends going forward?

How well does Validus Holdings fit our criteria?

Validus Holdings has a negative payout ratio, meaning that the company is not yet profitable and is paying dividend by dipping into its retained earnings. If there is one thing that you want to be reliable in your life, it’s dividend stocks and their constant income stream. VR has increased its DPS from $0.8 to $1.52 in the past 10 years. It has also been paying out dividend consistently during this time, as you’d expect for a company increasing its dividend levels. These are all positive signs of a great, reliable dividend stock. Relative to peers, Validus Holdings has a yield of 2.25%, which is on the low-side for Insurance stocks.

Next Steps:

Considering the dividend attributes we analyzed above, Validus Holdings is definitely worth keeping an eye on for someone looking to build a dedicated income portfolio. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, you should always research extensively before deciding whether or not a stock is an appropriate investment for you. I always recommend analysing the company’s fundamentals and underlying business before making an investment decision. There are three important factors you should further examine:

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

2. Historical Performance: What has VR’s returns been like over the past? Go into more detail in the past track record analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of our analysis for more clarity.

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.