Yahoo Finance James Fisher and Sons plc (LON:FSJ): 4 Days To Buy Before The Ex-Dividend Date
On the 02 November 2018, James Fisher and Sons plc (LON:FSJ) will be paying shareholders an upcoming dividend amount of UK£0.10 per share. However, investors must have bought the company’s stock before 04 October 2018 in order to qualify for the payment. That means you have only 4 days left! Should you diversify into James Fisher and Sons 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.
See our latest analysis for James Fisher and Sons
5 questions I ask before picking a dividend stock
Whenever I am looking at a potential dividend stock investment, I always check these five metrics:
Is their annual yield among the top 25% of dividend payers?
Has it consistently paid a stable dividend without missing a payment or drastically cutting payout?
Has dividend per share amount increased over the past?
Is is able to pay the current rate of dividends from its earnings?
Will the company be able to keep paying dividend based on the future earnings growth?
How well does James Fisher and Sons fit our criteria?
The company currently pays out 34.1% of its earnings as a dividend, according to its trailing twelve-month data, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. In the near future, analysts are predicting a higher payout ratio of 38.8%, leading to a dividend yield of around 1.9%. However, EPS is forecasted to fall to £0.86 in the upcoming year. Therefore, although payout is expected to increase, the fall in earnings may not equate to higher dividend income.
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. A business with strong cash flow can sustain a higher divided payout ratio than a company with weak cash flow.
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. In the case of FSJ it has increased its DPS from £0.11 to £0.29 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. This is an impressive feat, which makes FSJ a true dividend rockstar.
In terms of its peers, James Fisher and Sons generates a yield of 1.5%, which is on the low-side for Infrastructure stocks.
Next Steps:
Taking into account the dividend metrics, James Fisher and Sons ticks most of the boxes as a strong dividend investment, putting it in my list of top dividend payers. 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 relevant factors you should further examine:
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for FSJ’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for FSJ’s outlook.
Valuation: What is FSJ worth today? Even if the stock is a cash cow, it’s not worth an infinite price. The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether FSJ is currently mispriced by the market.
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 past 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. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
