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It looks like Amalgamated Financial Corp. (NASDAQ:AMAL) is about to go ex-dividend in the next 3 days. Typically, the ex-dividend date is one business day before the record date which is the date on which a company determines the shareholders eligible to receive a dividend. The ex-dividend date is an important date to be aware of as any purchase of the stock made on or after this date might mean a late settlement that doesn't show on the record date. Therefore, if you purchase Amalgamated Financial's shares on or after the 5th of November, you won't be eligible to receive the dividend, when it is paid on the 21st of November.
The company'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. Looking at the last 12 months of distributions, Amalgamated Financial has a trailing yield of approximately 1.4% on its current stock price of US$33.165. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether Amalgamated Financial's dividend is reliable and sustainable. That's why we should always check whether the dividend payments appear sustainable, and if the company is growing.
Check out our latest analysis for Amalgamated Financial
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. Amalgamated Financial paid out just 13% of its profit last year, which we think is conservatively low and leaves plenty of margin for unexpected circumstances.
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 the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.
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 decline and the company is forced to cut its dividend, investors could watch the value of their investment go up in smoke. For this reason, we're glad to see Amalgamated Financial's earnings per share have risen 18% per annum over the last five years.
Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. Since the start of our data, six years ago, Amalgamated Financial has lifted its dividend by approximately 12% a year on average. Both per-share earnings and dividends have both been growing rapidly in recent times, which is great to see.