Yahoo Finance NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) Has Affirmed Its Dividend Of US$0.50
The board of NetApp, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) has announced that it will pay a dividend on the 27th of July, with investors receiving US$0.50 per share. The dividend yield will be 3.1% based on this payment which is still above the industry average.
View our latest analysis for NetApp
NetApp's Earnings Easily Cover the Distributions
Impressive dividend yields are good, but this doesn't matter much if the payments can't be sustained. The last dividend was quite easily covered by NetApp's earnings. This indicates that quite a large proportion of earnings is being invested back into the business.
Looking forward, earnings per share is forecast to fall by 0.06% over the next year. If the dividend continues along recent trends, we estimate the payout ratio could be 56%, which we consider to be quite comfortable, with most of the company's earnings left over to grow the business in the future.
NetApp Is Still Building Its Track Record
Even though the company has been paying a consistent dividend for a while, we would like to see a few more years before we feel comfortable relying on it. Since 2013, the first annual payment was US$0.60, compared to the most recent full-year payment of US$2.00. This implies that the company grew its distributions at a yearly rate of about 14% over that duration. It is always nice to see strong dividend growth, but with such a short payment history we wouldn't be inclined to rely on it until a longer track record can be developed.
The Dividend Looks Likely To Grow
Investors could be attracted to the stock based on the quality of its payment history. It's encouraging to see NetApp has been growing its earnings per share at 19% a year over the past five years. The company is paying a reasonable amount of earnings to shareholders, and is growing earnings at a decent rate so we think it could be a decent dividend stock.
We Really Like NetApp's Dividend
In summary, it is good to see that the dividend is staying consistent, and we don't think there is any reason to suspect this might change over the medium term. The earnings easily cover the company's distributions, and the company is generating plenty of cash. If earnings do fall over the next 12 months, the dividend could be buffeted a little bit, but we don't think it should cause too much of a problem in the long term. All in all, this checks a lot of the boxes we look for when choosing an income stock.
Investors generally tend to favour companies with a consistent, stable dividend policy as opposed to those operating an irregular one. Still, investors need to consider a host of other factors, apart from dividend payments, when analysing a company. As an example, we've identified 2 warning signs for NetApp that you should be aware of before investing. If you are a dividend investor, you might also want to look at our curated list of high yield dividend stocks.
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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
