Duke Energy's Dividend X-Ray

Not all dividends are created equal. Here, we'll do a top-to-bottom analysis of a given company to understand the quality of its dividend and how that's changed over the past five years.
The company we're looking at today is Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), which yields 4.7%.
Dividend
To evaluate the quality of a dividend, the first thing to consider is whether the company has paid a dividend consistently over the past five years, and if so, how much has it grown.
Duke Energy has been steadily raising its dividend every year. Most recently Duke raised its dividend from $0.245 to $0.25 per quarter.
Immediate safety
To understand how safe a dividend is, we use three crucial tools, the first of which is:
The interest coverage ratio, or the number of times interest is earned, which is calculated by earnings before interest and taxes, divided by interest expense. The interest coverage ratio measures a company's ability to pay the interest on its debt. A ratio less than 1.5 is questionable; a number less than one means the company is not bringing in enough money to cover its interest expenses.
At 3.46, Duke Energy covers every $1 in interest expense with just over $3 in operating earnings.
Sustainability
The other tools we use to evaluate the safety of a dividend are:
The EPS payout ratio, or dividends per share divided by earnings per share. The EPS payout ratio measures the percentage of earnings that go toward paying the dividend. A ratio greater than 80% is worrisome.
The FCF payout ratio, or dividends per share divided by free cash flow per share. Earnings alone don't always paint a complete picture of a business's health. The FCF payout ratio measures the percent of free cash flow devoted toward paying the dividend. Again, a ratio greater than 80% could be a red flag.
Duke Energy's payout ratio hit as high as 276% last year before coming back down to the 70%-80% range.... Read more

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