5 Highly Profitable Stocks With Rising Dividends and Decreasing Payout Ratio

Certain dividend trends can help an investor gain insight into the reliability of a company’s dividend yield. One trend is a rising dividend per share while the company’s payout ratio (dividends/earnings) is decreasing. This implies that earnings are growing, and dividends are not becoming a larger fraction of earnings. We screened highly profitable stocks, beating their industry peers on gross, operating, and pretax margins over the trailing twelve months (TTM) for those that have seen rising dividends (comparing the current year dividend per share estimate to the most recent fiscal year dividend per share) while seeing a falling payout ratio (comparing the trailing-twelve-month ratio to the three-year average). Interactive Chart: Press Play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last two years for the stocks... Read more