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Are You Looking for a High-Growth Dividend Stock?

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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 the distribution of a company's earnings paid out to shareholders; it's often viewed by its dividend yield, a metric that measures a dividend as a percent of the current stock price. Many academic studies show that dividends account for significant portions of long-term returns, with dividend contributions exceeding one-third of total returns in many cases.

Headquartered in Englewood Cliffs, ConnectOne Bancorp (CNOB - Free Report) is a Finance stock that has seen a price change of 9.3% so far this year. The holding company for ConnectOne Bank is currently shelling out a dividend of $0.18 per share, with a dividend yield of 2.88%. This compares to the Banks - Northeast industry's yield of 2.72% and the S&P 500's yield of 1.54%.

Looking at dividend growth, the company's current annualized dividend of $0.72 is up 1.4% from last year. Over the last 5 years, ConnectOne Bancorp has increased its dividend 4 times on a year-over-year basis for an average annual increase of 17.00%. 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. ConnectOne's current payout ratio is 38%, meaning it paid out 38% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.

Earnings growth looks solid for CNOB for this fiscal year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 is $2.55 per share, with earnings expected to increase 40.11% from the year ago period.

Investors like dividends for a variety of different reasons, from tax advantages and decreasing overall portfolio risk to considerably improving stock investing profits. It's important to keep in mind that not all companies provide a quarterly payout.

For instance, it's a rare occurrence when a tech start-up or big growth business offers its shareholders a dividend. It's more common to see larger companies with more established profits give out dividends. Income investors have to be mindful 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 CNOB is not only an attractive dividend play, but also represents a compelling investment opportunity with a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).


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