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The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next four days. The ex-dividend date occurs one day before the record date which is the day on which shareholders need to be on the company's books in order to receive a dividend. The ex-dividend date is an important date to be aware of as any purchase of the stock made on or after this date might mean a late settlement that doesn't show on the record date. Accordingly, Toro investors that purchase the stock on or after the 5th of April will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 19th of April.
The company's next dividend payment will be US$0.34 per share, on the back of last year when the company paid a total of US$1.36 to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Toro has a trailing yield of 1.2% on the current stock price of $109. Dividends are a major contributor to investment returns for long term holders, but only if the dividend continues to be paid. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.
See our latest analysis for Toro
If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. That's why it's good to see Toro paying out a modest 27% of its earnings. Yet cash flow is typically more important than profit for assessing dividend sustainability, so we should always check if the company generated enough cash to afford its dividend. Over the last year, it paid out more than three-quarters (86%) of its free cash flow generated, which is fairly high and may be starting to limit reinvestment in the business.
It's encouraging to see that the dividend is covered by both profit and cash flow. This generally suggests the dividend is sustainable, as long as earnings don't drop precipitously.
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. If earnings fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. For this reason, we're glad to see Toro's earnings per share have risen 13% per annum over the last five years. The company paid out most of its earnings as dividends over the last year, even though business is booming and earnings per share are growing rapidly. We're surprised that management has not elected to reinvest more in the business to accelerate growth further.