4 Days Left Until Hallador Energy Company (NASDAQ:HNRG) Trades Ex-Dividend
Readers hoping to buy Hallador Energy Company (NASDAQ:HNRG) for its dividend will need to make their move shortly, as the stock is about to trade ex-dividend. Ex-dividend means that investors that purchase the stock on or after the 30th of July will not receive this dividend, which will be paid on the 16th of August.
Hallador Energy's next dividend payment will be US$0.04 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed US$0.16 to shareholders. Looking at the last 12 months of distributions, Hallador Energy has a trailing yield of approximately 2.7% on its current stock price of $5.84. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether Hallador Energy's dividend is reliable and sustainable. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.
See our latest analysis for Hallador Energy
If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Fortunately Hallador Energy's payout ratio is modest, at just 40% of profit. Yet cash flow is typically more important than profit for assessing dividend sustainability, so we should always check if the company generated enough cash to afford its dividend. What's good is that dividends were well covered by free cash flow, with the company paying out 18% of its cash flow last year.
It's encouraging to see that the dividend is covered by both profit and cash flow. This generally suggests the dividend is sustainable, as long as earnings don't drop precipitously.
Click here to see how much of its profit Hallador Energy paid out over the last 12 months.
NasdaqCM:HNRG Historical Dividend Yield, July 25th 2019
Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?
Businesses with shrinking earnings are tricky from a dividend perspective. If earnings fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. Readers will understand then, why we're concerned to see Hallador Energy's earnings per share have dropped 12% a year over the past five years. Such a sharp decline casts doubt on the future sustainability of the dividend.
The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. Hallador Energy has delivered an average of 3.7% per year annual increase in its dividend, based on the past 8 years of dividend payments.
Should investors buy Hallador Energy for the upcoming dividend? Earnings per share are down meaningfully, although at least the company is paying out a low and conservative percentage of both its earnings and cash flow. It's definitely not great to see earnings falling, but at least there may be some buffer before the dividend needs to be cut. Overall, it's hard to get excited about Hallador Energy from a dividend perspective.
Keen to explore more data on Hallador Energy's financial performance? Check out our visualisation of its historical revenue and earnings growth.
We wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see, though. Here's a list of interesting dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend.
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