Are You Looking for a High-Growth Dividend Stock?

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 account for significant portions of long-term returns, with dividend contributions exceeding one-third of total returns in many cases.

Headquartered in Hamilton, Essent Group (ESNT) is a Finance stock that has seen a price change of -1% so far this year. The mortgage insurance and reinsurance holding company is paying out a dividend of $0.35 per share at the moment, with a dividend yield of 2.18% compared to the Insurance - Property and Casualty industry's yield of 0.77% and the S&P 500's yield of 1.35%.

Looking at dividend growth, the company's current annualized dividend of $1.40 is up 12.9% from last year. Over the last 5 years, Essent Group has increased its dividend 5 times on a year-over-year basis for an average annual increase of 16.21%. 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. Essent Group's current payout ratio is 20%, meaning it paid out 20% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.

Earnings growth looks solid for ESNT for this fiscal year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 is $7.25 per share, with earnings expected to increase 5.07% from the year ago period.

Investors like dividends for a variety of different reasons, from tax advantages and decreasing overall portfolio risk to considerably improving stock investing profits. But, not every company offers a quarterly payout.

For instance, it's a rare occurrence when a tech start-up or big growth business offers its shareholders a dividend. It's more common to see larger companies with more established profits give out dividends. Income investors have to be mindful of the fact that high-yielding stocks tend to struggle during periods of rising interest rates. With that in mind, ESNT presents a compelling investment opportunity; it's not only an attractive dividend play, but the stock also boasts a strong Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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