All investors love getting big returns from their portfolio, whether it's through stocks, bonds, ETFs, or other types of securities. However, when you're an income investor, your primary focus is generating consistent cash flow from each of your liquid investments.
While cash flow can come from bond interest or interest from other types of investments, income investors hone in on dividends. A dividend is the distribution of a company's earnings paid out to shareholders; it's often viewed by its dividend yield, a metric that measures a dividend as a percent of the current stock price. Many academic studies show that dividends make up large portions of long-term returns, and in many cases, dividend contributions surpass one-third of total returns.
CMS Energy (CMS) is headquartered in Jackson, and is in the Utilities sector. The stock has seen a price change of 9.15% since the start of the year. Currently paying a dividend of $0.57 per share, the company has a dividend yield of 2.99%. In comparison, the Utility - Electric Power industry's yield is 2.97%, while the S&P 500's yield is 1.5%.
Looking at dividend growth, the company's current annualized dividend of $2.28 is up 5.1% from last year. Over the last 5 years, CMS Energy has increased its dividend 5 times on a year-over-year basis for an average annual increase of 5.79%. Looking ahead, future dividend growth will be dependent on earnings growth and payout ratio, which is the proportion of a company's annual earnings per share that it pays out as a dividend. CMS Energy's current payout ratio is 60%, meaning it paid out 60% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.
Looking at this fiscal year, CMS expects solid earnings growth. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 is $3.86 per share, which represents a year-over-year growth rate of 6.93%.
From greatly improving stock investing profits and reducing overall portfolio risk to providing tax advantages, investors like dividends for a variety of different reasons. However, not all companies offer a quarterly payout.
Big, established firms that have more secure profits are often seen as the best dividend options, but it's fairly uncommon to see high-growth businesses or tech start-ups offer their stockholders a dividend. Income investors have to be mindful of the fact that high-yielding stocks tend to struggle during periods of rising interest rates. That said, they can take comfort from the fact that CMS is not only an attractive dividend play, but also represents a compelling investment opportunity with a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
