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Are You Looking for a High-Growth Dividend Stock?

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All investors love getting big returns from their portfolio, whether it's through stocks, bonds, ETFs, or other types of securities. But for income investors, generating consistent cash flow from each of your liquid investments is your primary focus.

While cash flow can come from bond interest or interest from other types of investments, income investors hone in on 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.

OFG Bancorp in Focus

OFG Bancorp (OFG - Free Report) is headquartered in San Juan, and is in the Finance sector. The stock has seen a price change of 5.76% since the start of the year. The financial holding company is currently shelling out a dividend of $0.15 per share, with a dividend yield of 2.14%. This compares to the Banks - Northeast industry's yield of 2.28% and the S&P 500's yield of 1.53%.

Looking at dividend growth, the company's current annualized dividend of $0.60 is up 50% from last year. In the past five-year period, OFG Bancorp has increased its dividend 3 times on a year-over-year basis for an average annual increase of 15.49%. 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. Right now, OFG's payout ratio is 20%, which means it paid out 20% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.

Earnings growth looks solid for OFG for this fiscal year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2022 is $3.10 per share, with earnings expected to increase 10.32% from the year ago period.

Bottom Line

Investors like dividends for many reasons; they greatly improve stock investing profits, decrease overall portfolio risk, and carry tax advantages, among others. 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. That said, they can take comfort from the fact that OFG is not only an attractive dividend play, but is also a compelling investment opportunity with a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).


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