Regular readers will know that we love our dividends at Simply Wall St, which is why it's exciting to see Elmira Savings Bank (NASDAQ:ESBK) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 4 days. This means that investors who purchase shares on or after the 3rd of September will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 11th of September.
Elmira Savings Bank's next dividend payment will be US$0.15 per share, on the back of last year when the company paid a total of US$0.60 to shareholders. Looking at the last 12 months of distributions, Elmira Savings Bank has a trailing yield of approximately 5.7% on its current stock price of $10.6. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.
View our latest analysis for Elmira Savings Bank
Dividends are usually paid out of company profits, so if a company pays out more than it earned then its dividend is usually at greater risk of being cut. Its dividend payout ratio is 78% of profit, which means the company is paying out a majority of its earnings. The relatively limited profit reinvestment could slow the rate of future earnings growth. We'd be worried about the risk of a drop in earnings.
When a company paid out less in dividends than it earned in profit, this generally suggests its dividend is affordable. The lower the % of its profit that it pays out, the greater the margin of safety for the dividend if the business enters a downturn.
Click here to see how much of its profit Elmira Savings Bank paid out over the last 12 months.
Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?
Stocks with flat earnings can still be attractive dividend payers, but it is important to be more conservative with your approach and demand a greater margin for safety when it comes to dividend sustainability. If business enters a downturn and the dividend is cut, the company could see its value fall precipitously. It's not encouraging to see that Elmira Savings Bank's earnings are effectively flat over the past five years. It's better than seeing them drop, certainly, but over the long term, all of the best dividend stocks are able to meaningfully grow their earnings per share.
Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. It looks like the Elmira Savings Bank dividends are largely the same as they were 10 years ago.
Final Takeaway
Is Elmira Savings Bank worth buying for its dividend? Elmira Savings Bank's earnings are effectively flat over recent years, even as the company pays out more than half of its earnings to shareholders as dividends. At best we would put it on a watch-list to see if business conditions improve, as it doesn't look like a clear opportunity right now.