Financial Institutions Inc (NASDAQ:FISI): Dividend Is Coming In 3 Days, Should You Buy?

On the 02 July 2018, Financial Institutions Inc (NASDAQ:FISI) will be paying shareholders an upcoming dividend amount of $0.24 per share. However, investors must have bought the company’s stock before 13 June 2018 in order to qualify for the payment. That means you have only 3 days left! Should you diversify into Financial Institutions and boost your portfolio income stream? Well, keep on reading because today, I’m going to look at the latest data and analyze the stock and its dividend property in further detail. Check out our latest analysis for Financial Institutions

5 questions I ask before picking a dividend stock

When assessing a stock as a potential addition to my dividend Portfolio, I look at these five areas:

• Is it the top 25% annual dividend yield payer?

• Has its dividend been stable over the past (i.e. no missed payments or significant payout cuts)?

• Has it increased its dividend per share amount over the past?

• Is it able to pay the current rate of dividends from its earnings?

• Will it have the ability to keep paying its dividends going forward?

Does Financial Institutions pass our checks?

Financial Institutions has a trailing twelve-month payout ratio of 40.56%, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. Furthermore, analysts have not forecasted a dividends per share for the future, which makes it hard to determine the yield shareholders should expect, and whether the current payout is sustainable, moving forward. If dividend is a key criteria in your investment consideration, then you need to make sure the dividend stock you’re eyeing out is reliable in its payments. Whilst its per-share payments have increased during the past 10 years, there has been some hiccups. Investors have seen reductions in the dividend per share in the past, although, it has picked up again. Relative to peers, Financial Institutions generates a yield of 2.85%, which is on the low-side for Banks stocks.

Next Steps:

If you are building an income portfolio, then Financial Institutions is a complicated choice since it has some positive aspects as well as negative ones. But if you are not exclusively a dividend investor, the stock could still be an interesting investment opportunity. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, you should always research extensively before deciding whether or not a stock is an appropriate investment for you. I always recommend analysing the company’s fundamentals and underlying business before making an investment decision. Below, I’ve compiled three key factors you should look at:

1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for FISI’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for FISI’s outlook.

2. Valuation: What is FISI worth today? Even if the stock is a cash cow, it’s not worth an infinite price. The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether FISI is currently mispriced by the market.

3. Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here.

To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.