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Why Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS) is a Top Dividend Stock for Your Portfolio

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Whether it's through stocks, bonds, ETFs, or other types of securities, all investors love seeing their portfolios score big returns. But when you're an income investor, your primary focus is generating consistent cash flow from each of your liquid investments.

Cash flow can come from bond interest, interest from other types of investments, and of course, dividends. A dividend is that coveted distribution of a company's earnings paid out to shareholders, and investors often view it by its dividend yield, a metric that measures the dividend as a percent of the current stock price. Many academic studies show that dividends make up large portions of long-term returns, and in many cases, dividend contributions surpass one-third of total returns.

Dick's Sporting Goods in Focus

Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS - Free Report) is headquartered in Coraopolis, and is in the Retail-Wholesale sector. The stock has seen a price change of 8.81% since the start of the year. Currently paying a dividend of $0.28 per share, the company has a dividend yield of 3.24%. In comparison, the Retail - Miscellaneous industry's yield is 0.57%, while the S&P 500's yield is 1.92%.

Taking a look at the company's dividend growth, its current annualized dividend of $1.10 is up 22.2% from last year. Dick's Sporting Goods has increased its dividend 5 times on a year-over-year basis over the last 5 years for an average annual increase of 14.29%. Looking ahead, future dividend growth will be dependent on earnings growth and payout ratio, which is the proportion of a company's annual earnings per share that it pays out as a dividend. Dick's's current payout ratio is 34%, meaning it paid out 34% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.

DKS is expecting earnings to expand this fiscal year as well. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2019 is $3.33 per share, with earnings expected to increase 2.78% from the year ago period.

Bottom Line

Investors like dividends for a variety of different reasons, from tax advantages and decreasing overall portfolio risk to considerably improving stock investing profits. However, not all companies offer a quarterly payout.

Big, established firms that have more secure profits are often seen as the best dividend options, but it's fairly uncommon to see high-growth businesses or tech start-ups offer their stockholders a dividend. Income investors must be conscious of the fact that high-yielding stocks tend to struggle during periods of rising interest rates. With that in mind, DKS presents a compelling investment opportunity; it's not only an attractive dividend play, but the stock also boasts a strong Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).


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