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Should Principal Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:PFG) Be Your Next Stock Pick?

Principal Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:PFG) is a company with exceptional fundamental characteristics. Upon building up an investment case for a stock, we should look at various aspects. In the case of PFG, it is a financially-robust company with a great history superior dividend payments, trading at a great value. In the following section, I expand a bit more on these key aspects. For those interested in understanding where the figures come from and want to see the analysis, take a look at the report on Principal Financial Group here.

6 star dividend payer and undervalued

PFG's ability to maintain an adequate level of cash to meet upcoming liabilities is a good sign for its financial health. This suggests prudent control over cash and cost by management, which is an important determinant of the company’s health. PFG's has produced operating cash levels of 1.6x total debt over the past year, which implies that PFG's management has put its borrowings into good use by generating enough cash to cover a sufficient portion of borrowings. PFG's share price is trading at below its true value, meaning that the market sentiment for the stock is currently bearish. This mispricing gives investors the opportunity to buy into the stock at a cheap price compared to the value they will be receiving, should analysts' consensus forecast growth be correct. Also, relative to the rest of its peers with similar levels of earnings, PFG's share price is trading below the group's average. This bolsters the proposition that PFG's price is currently discounted.

NasdaqGS:PFG Intrinsic value, August 12th 2019
NasdaqGS:PFG Intrinsic value, August 12th 2019

Income investors would also be happy to know that PFG is one of the highest dividend payers in the market, with current dividend yield standing at 4.0%. PFG has also been regularly increasing its dividend payments to shareholders over the past decade.

NasdaqGS:PFG Historical Dividend Yield, August 12th 2019
NasdaqGS:PFG Historical Dividend Yield, August 12th 2019

Next Steps:

For Principal Financial Group, I've put together three relevant factors you should further examine:

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

  2. Historical Performance: What has PFG'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 Attractive Alternatives : Are there other well-rounded stocks you could be holding instead of PFG? Explore our interactive list of stocks with large potential to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.