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.

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 make up large portions of long-term returns, and in many cases, dividend contributions surpass one-third of total returns.

Headquartered in Eau Claire, Citizens Community Bancorp, Inc. (CZWI) is a Finance stock that has seen a price change of -2.3% so far this year. Currently paying a dividend of $0.10 per share, the company has a dividend yield of 2.41%. In comparison, the Financial - Savings and Loan industry's yield is 2.65%, while the S&P 500's yield is 1.36%.

Looking at dividend growth, the company's current annualized dividend of $0.42 is up 16.7% from last year. Over the last 5 years, Citizens Community Bancorp, Inc. has increased its dividend 5 times on a year-over-year basis for an average annual increase of 11.77%. 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. Citizens Community Bancorp's current payout ratio is 25%, meaning it paid out 25% of its trailing 12-month EPS as dividend.

Earnings growth looks solid for CZWI for this fiscal year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 is $1.75 per share, which represents a year-over-year growth rate of 19.86%.

From greatly improving stock investing profits and reducing overall portfolio risk to providing tax advantages, investors like dividends for a variety of different reasons. But, not every company offers 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 have to be mindful of the fact that high-yielding stocks tend to struggle during periods of rising interest rates. With that in mind, CZWI is a compelling investment opportunity. Not only is it a strong dividend play, but the stock currently sits at a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

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Citizens Community Bancorp, Inc. (CZWI): Free Stock Analysis Report

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

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