Attention dividend hunters! Bank of Queensland Limited (ASX:BOQ) will be distributing its dividend of A$0.46 per share in 3 days time, on the 23 November 2017, and will start trading ex-dividend on the 02 November 2017. Should you diversify into BOQ and boost your portfolio income stream? Well, keep on reading because today, I’m going to look at the latest data and analyze the stock and its dividend property in further detail. View our latest analysis for Bank of Queensland

5 questions to ask before buying a dividend stock

When assessing a stock as a potential addition to my dividend Portfolio, I look at these five areas:

• Is it paying an annual yield above 75% of dividend payers?

• Does it consistently pay out dividends without missing a payment or 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?

Does Bank of Queensland pass our checks?

The company currently pays out 83.53% of its earnings as a dividend, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. In the near future, analysts are predicting a payout ratio of 79.77% leading to a dividend yield of 5.97%. In addition to this, EPS should increase to A$0.96. This means the company should be able to continue to payout dividends. If there’s one type of stock you want to be reliable, it’s dividend stocks and their stable income-generating ability. Whilst its per-share payments have increased during the past 10 years, there has been some hiccups. Investors have seen reductions in the dividend per share in the past, although, it has picked up again. Relative to peers, BOQ generates a yield of 5.71%, which is on the low-side for a banks stock.

What this means for you:

Are you a shareholder? With Bank of Queensland producing strong dividend income for your portfolio over the past few years, you can take comfort in knowing that this stock will still continue to be a robust dividend generator moving forward. But, depending on your current portfolio, it may be valuable exploring other income stocks to improve your diversification, or even look at high-growth stocks to supplement your steady income stocks. I suggest continuing 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? Taking into account the dividend metrics, Bank of Queensland ticks most of the boxes as a strong dividend investment, putting it in my list of top dividend payers. 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. No matter how much of a cash cow Bank of Queensland is, it is not worth an infinite price. Can you still benefit from a mispricing of the stock? Check our latest free analysis to find out!

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.