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 that coveted distribution of a company's earnings paid out to shareholders, and investors often view it by its dividend yield, a metric that measures the dividend as a percent of the current stock price. Many academic studies show that dividends account for significant portions of long-term returns, with dividend contributions exceeding one-third of total returns in many cases.
Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) is headquartered in Toronto, and is in the Finance sector. The stock has seen a price change of 11.81% since the start of the year. Currently paying a dividend of $0.78 per share, the company has a dividend yield of 2.95%. In comparison, the Banks - Foreign industry's yield is 2.72%, while the S&P 500's yield is 1.39%.
Looking at dividend growth, the company's current annualized dividend of $3.11 is up 4.2% from last year. Over the last 5 years, Toronto-Dominion Bank has increased its dividend 3 times on a year-over-year basis for an average annual increase of 5.24%. 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. Toronto-Dominion's current payout ratio is 47%, meaning it paid out 47% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.
Earnings growth looks solid for TD for this fiscal year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 is $6.87 per share, which represents a year-over-year growth rate of 14.88%.
From greatly improving stock investing profits and reducing overall portfolio risk to providing tax advantages, investors like dividends for a variety of different reasons. It's important to keep in mind that not all companies provide a quarterly payout.
High-growth firms or tech start-ups, for example, rarely provide their shareholders a dividend, while larger, more established companies that have more secure profits are often seen as the best dividend options. Income investors must be conscious 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 TD is not only an attractive dividend play, but is also 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.
