stub
HomeInvestmentsFebruary 2020 Undervalued Dividend Growth Stock Watch List and Purchase

February 2020 Undervalued Dividend Growth Stock Watch List and Purchase

Every month I screen for possibly undervalued dividend growth stocks using very specific metrics which are described below and then make a purchase or two. While the metrics change every year or two, I have been doing this process for a long, long time. The reason that the metrics change every so often is that I don’t feel strong enough in one thought process, that I figure if I can build the portfolio using some of the best ideas from multiple people, I’ll end up in a pretty damn good place.

My goal by the end of the first quarter 2020 is to take a look at my metrics and determine what, if anything, would I like to change.

Screening for Undervalued Dividend Growth Companies

Dividend Growth History

The very first hurdle that a company has to pass is whether it has increased its dividend for 20 or more years.  I am looking to build a sustainable income stream, and it is my hope (and all it is a hope) that if they have paid dividends for 2+ decades it is part of their DNA and so they’ll continue to do so.  I use the Dividend Champion List (25+ years of dividend growth) and part of the Dividend Contender List (10 to 24 years of dividend growth).  The lists are maintained by The DRiP Resource Center.

Price to Earnings

The first metric I screen for is Price to Earnings.  Price to earnings is defined as,

the ratio for valuing a company that measures its current share price relative to its per-share earnings.

P/E is probably the most popular way to value stocks.  If you are reading this post you should probably already know that price in it of itself is not a measure of a company’s value. In the past I have used different ratios (under 20, under industry average, under both 20 and industry average,  under 20 CAPE P/E, etc.) for calendar year 2019 I am going to focus on those stocks with a P/E under 15.

Dividend Yield and Payout Ratio

I am not dividend hunting, but I do want to get paid to have money invested with the company, so I am going to use a dividend yield of at least 2% for calendar year 2019.  Much more important than the yield is the Dividend Payout Ratio which is simply the amount of earnings per share that is being used to support the dividend.  While sources will have different views on the topic I like Dividends.com guidelines,

A range of 35% to 55% is considered healthy and appropriate from a dividend investor’s point of view. A company that is likely to distribute roughly half of its earnings as dividends means that the company is well established and a leader in its industry. It’s also reinvesting half of its earnings for growth, which is welcome.

Over the past six months or so, I found that I was eliminating some otherwise investable stocks just because they were under 35% and that didn’t/doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.  So anything over 55% is eliminated.

Free Cash Flow Yield

New for 2019 is Free Cash Flow Yield.

Free cash flow measures the cash available to shareholders after a company has paid all of its bills in full. Buffett relies heavily on a similar metric that he dubs “owner earnings.”

One way to gauge a firm’s cash flow production is to examine its free cash flow yield. This is calculated by dividing free cash flow by market capitalization, or the inverse of the Price/FCF ratio. A firm with a free cash flow yield of 10%, for example, generates 10% of its total market value in cash each year. That cash, in turn, can be used to pay dividends or fund share buybacks — items that enhance shareholder returns.

Having seen a bunch of a different articles on the topic I liked this one best explaining where my gauge should be:

Having used the Free Cash Flow Yield a zillion times over the years, I have come up with these conservative parameters for my own investing.

For the more Aggressive, as well as the “Buy and Hold” investor, I would adjust everything down a notch, and for example, would make the hold from 2% to 5.9% and the buy from 6% to 9.9% and sell anything under 2%. As for shorting a stock that would be any result under zero, including any negative result. Here is a listing of those parameters for easy reference.

Since this is a pure buy and hold account I set my screener at 6%+ for Free Cash Flow Yield.

My February 2020 Watch List and Purchase

After applying the above screen I went from 179 companies to 16. What is more worrisome is that I only had 6 last month! I think it has to do with changes in the underlying company as well as the decision to remove a market capitalization option I threw on but never really discussed.

NameSymbolP/E RatioDividend YieldFree Cash Flow YieldPayout Ratio
Bank OZKOZK8.413.53%15.83%26%
AFLAC Inc.AFL11.642.03%12.47%24%
Old Republic InternationalORI6.517.74%10.57%23%
1st Source Corp.SRCE13.212.43%10.00%31%
Eagle Financial ServicesEFSI11.493.18%9.73%35%
Citizens Financial ServicesCZFS11.852.75%9.52%32%
Community Trust Banc.CTBI12.133.42%9.36%40%
First Financial Corp.THFF12.102.35%8.97%27%
Eaton Vance Corp.EV12.193.04%8.95%41%
First of Long Island Corp.FLIC13.243.09%8.76%42%
Enterprise Bancorp Inc.EBTC10.502.06%8.62%22%
Nucor Corp.NUE10.553.31%7.64%39%
Norwood FinancialNWFL15.522.86%7.52%43%
Cullen/Frost BankersCFR12.973.03%7.43%41%
National BanksharesNKSH14.923.60%6.49%52%
Arrow Financial Corp.AROW13.932.98%6.07%41%
Cambridge BancorpCATC15.472.82%5.95%38%

I have a position in those companies that are italicized. Very interesting that all the remaining choices were banking companies except Eaton Vance (investments), Aflac (insurance) and NUE (steel). Instead of going deeper on which bank I wanted to purchase, I decided to split my normal lot ($500) instead of 2 or 3 lots between these 3 companies buying just a tiny amount in each one.

What are you buying this month?

RELATED ARTICLES

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Related Articles

Recent Comments