Are You Looking for a High-Growth Dividend Stock?

Whether it's through stocks, bonds, ETFs, or other types of securities, all investors love seeing their portfolios score big returns. However, when you're an income investor, your primary focus is generating consistent cash flow from each of your liquid investments.

Cash flow can come from bond interest, interest from other types of investments, and, of course, 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.

Lakeland Financial (LKFN) is headquartered in Warsaw, and is in the Finance sector. The stock has seen a price change of -1.32% since the start of the year. The holding company for Lake City Bank is paying out a dividend of $0.50 per share at the moment, with a dividend yield of 2.95% compared to the Banks - Midwest industry's yield of 2.99% and the S&P 500's yield of 1.49%.

Looking at dividend growth, the company's current annualized dividend of $2.00 is up 4.2% from last year. Over the last 5 years, Lakeland Financial has increased its dividend 5 times on a year-over-year basis for an average annual increase of 11.83%. 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. Lakeland Financial's current payout ratio is 54%, meaning it paid out 54% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.

Looking at this fiscal year, LKFN expects solid earnings growth. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 is $3.89 per share, with earnings expected to increase 12.10% 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. However, not all companies offer 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. During periods of rising interest rates, income investors must be mindful that high-yielding stocks tend to struggle. That said, they can take comfort from the fact that LKFN 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).

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