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Oppenheimer Holdings Inc. (NYSE:OPY) stock is about to trade ex-dividend in 2 days. This means that investors who purchase shares on or after the 12th of August will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 27th of August.
Oppenheimer Holdings's next dividend payment will be US$0.12 per share, on the back of last year when the company paid a total of US$0.48 to shareholders. Calculating the last year's worth of payments shows that Oppenheimer Holdings has a trailing yield of 2.0% on the current share price of $23.8. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. As a result, readers should always check whether Oppenheimer Holdings has been able to grow its dividends, or if the dividend might be cut.
View our latest analysis for Oppenheimer Holdings
Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned in profit, then the dividend could be unsustainable. Oppenheimer Holdings is paying out just 11% of its profit after tax, which is comfortably low and leaves plenty of breathing room in the case of adverse events.
Generally speaking, the lower a company's payout ratios, the more resilient its dividend usually is.
Click here to see how much of its profit Oppenheimer Holdings paid out over the last 12 months.
Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?
Businesses with strong growth prospects usually make the best dividend payers, because it's easier to grow dividends when earnings per share are improving. If earnings fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. That's why it's comforting to see Oppenheimer Holdings's earnings have been skyrocketing, up 68% per annum for the past five years.
Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. In the last 10 years, Oppenheimer Holdings has lifted its dividend by approximately 0.9% a year on average. It's good to see both earnings and the dividend have improved - although the former has been rising much quicker than the latter, possibly due to the company reinvesting more of its profits in growth.
The Bottom Line
Is Oppenheimer Holdings an attractive dividend stock, or better left on the shelf? Companies like Oppenheimer Holdings that are growing rapidly and paying out a low fraction of earnings, are usually reinvesting heavily in their business. Perhaps even more importantly - this can sometimes signal management is focused on the long term future of the business. We think this is a pretty attractive combination, and would be interested in investigating Oppenheimer Holdings more closely.