Have you been waiting for Dover Corporation’s (NYSE:DOV) upcoming dividend of $0.47 per share? Then you only have to wait 3 more days before the stock pays out on 15 December 2017, and starts trading ex-dividend on the 29 November 2017. Investors looking for higher income-generating stocks to add to their portfolio should keep reading, as I take a deeper dive into DOV’s latest financial data to analyse its dividend attributes. Check out our latest analysis for Dover

5 checks you should do on a dividend stock

If you are a dividend investor, you should always assess these five key metrics:

• Is its annual yield among the top 25% of dividend-paying companies?

• Has it consistently paid a stable dividend without missing a payment or drastically cutting payout?

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

• Does earnings amply cover its dividend payments?

• Will it be able to continue to payout at the current rate in the future?

How well does Dover fit our criteria?

The company currently pays out 41.18% of its earnings as a dividend, which means that the dividend is covered by earnings. However, going forward, analysts expect DOV’s payout to fall to 35.99% of its earnings, which leads to a dividend yield of around 2.00%. However, EPS should increase to $4.49, meaning that the lower payout ratio does not necessarily implicate a lower dividend payment. Reliablity is an important factor for dividend stocks, particularly for income investors who want a strong track record of payment and a positive outlook for future payout. DOV has increased its DPS from $0.8 to $1.88 in the past 10 years. During this period it has not missed a payment, as one would expect for a company increasing its dividend. These are all positive signs of a great, reliable dividend stock. Relative to peers, DOV has a yield of 1.89%, which is high for machinery stocks but still below the low risk savings rate.

What this means for you:

Are you a shareholder?

Are you a shareholder? Investors of Dover can continue to expect strong dividends from the stock moving forward. With its favorable dividend characteristics, DOV is one worth keeping around in your income portfolio. However, depending on your current holdings, it may be beneficial exploring other income stocks to increase diversification, or even look at high-growth stocks to complement your steady income stocks. I recommend continuing your research by exploring my interactive free list of dividend rockstars as well as high-growth stocks to potentially add to your holdings.

Are you a potential investor? With this in mind, I definitely rank Dover as a strong dividend stock, and makes it worth further research for anyone who likes steady income generation from their portfolio. As always, I urge potential investors to try and get a good understanding of the underlying business and its fundamentals before deciding on an investment. Another aspect to consider for DOV is how much it’s actually worth. Can you buy DOV for a great price? Dig deeper in our latest free analysis to find out!

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.