If you are interested in cashing in on Peoples Financial Services Corp’s (NASDAQ:PFIS) upcoming dividend of $0.32 per share, you only have 3 days left to buy the shares before its ex-dividend date, 29 November 2017, in time for dividends payable on the 15 December 2017. Is this future income stream a compelling catalyst for dividend investors to think about PFIS as an investment today? Let’s take a look at PFIS’s most recent financial data to examine its dividend characteristics in more detail. Check out our latest analysis for Peoples Financial Services

5 checks you should do on a dividend stock

If you are a dividend investor, you should always assess these five key metrics:

• Does it pay an annual yield higher than 75% 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 is able to pay the current rate of dividends from its earnings?

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

How does Peoples Financial Services fare?

The company currently pays out 45.01% of its earnings as a dividend, which means that the dividend is 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. 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. The reality is that it is too early to consider Peoples Financial Services as a dividend investment. It has only been consistently paying dividends for 4 years, however, standard practice for reliable payers is to look for a 10-year minimum track record. Compared to its peers, PFIS generates a yield of 2.68%, which is high for banks stocks but still below the market’s top dividend payers.

What this means for you:

Are you a shareholder? Investors may not have the best feeling about their investment in PFIS right now, in terms of its dividend attributes. It may be beneficial exploring other income stocks as alternatives to PFIS or even look at high-growth stocks to supplement 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? Now you know to keep in mind the reason why investors should be careful investing in PFIS for the dividend. On the other hand, if you are not strictly just a dividend investor, PFIS could still be offering some interesting investment opportunities. As always, I urge potential investors to try and get a good understanding of the underlying business and its fundamentals before deciding on an investment. Dig deeper in our latest free fundmental analysis to explore other aspects of PFIS.

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.