ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE) is a go-to stock for income investors for several reasons. One of the reasons is its stable dividend yield that has remained unshakable for more than a decade. With a current dividend yield of 5.32%, coupled with a rise in dividend payout on year-over-year basis, investors have every reason to buy this stock. In the company’s latest dividend payout, the shareholders earned $0.89 per share, representing 2.9% rise over the same quarter last year.
Profile
ONEOK, Inc. is a diversified Fortune 500 corporation based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. ONEOK was founded in 1906 as Oklahoma Natural Gas Company, but It changed its corporate name to ONEOK in December 1980. It also owns major natural gas liquids systems due to the 2005 acquisition of Koch Industries natural gas businesses.
Dividend Stability
One of the ways to determine whether a stock is a good dividend stock is its stability. ONEOK has a clean track record on this. Dividend growth is also important to look into. In the case of ONEOK, their annualized dividend payout in 2009 was $0.80, which is way lower than their latest payout of $3.46. Over the same period, the company’s dividend has grown on an average of 16% per year. This can only be possible if the stock is performing well in general.
While there could be challenges in the markets, ONEOK Inc has managed to weather the storms, with no major slumps in its dividend. This not only shows that the company’s performance has been impressive but also that ONEOK Inc isn’t a risky stock to pump money into.
The Stock
In their latest quarterly results, ONEOK Inc. (NYSE:OKE) posted earnings per share of $0.75, beating Zacks consensus estimate by $0.05. In the same quarter last year, the stock posted $0.68 in earnings per share. The earnings per share figure represents a surprise of 7.14%. In the quarter before, the company pulled an earnings surprise of 10.96%.
For three of the past four quarters, ONEOK, Inc. has beaten consensus analyst estimates.
The $27.63 billion market cap company posted revenues of $2.46 billion in the earnings report for the quarter ended June 30, 2019, coming 9.02% shy of Zacks consensus estimate. For the same quarter last year, the company posted revenues of $2.96 billion. In three of the last four quarters, this natural gas company topped consensus revenue estimates.
Investors are bullish about the stock. ONEOK, Inc is expected to realize growth in dividend payout and to remain stable as it has been over the past decade.