Associated Banc-Corp (Symbol: ASB) has been named as a Top 10 dividend-paying financial stock, according to Dividend Channel, which published its most recent ''DividendRank'' report. The report noted that among shares of financial companies, ASB displayed both attractive valuation metrics and strong profitability metrics. For example, the recent ASB share price of $14.25 represents a price-to-book ratio of 0.6 and an annual dividend yield of 5.05% — by comparison, the average stock in Dividend Channel's coverage universe yields 3.9% and trades at a price-to-book ratio of 2.1. The report also cited the strong quarterly dividend history at Associated Banc-Corp, and favorable long-term multi-year growth rates in key fundamental data points.
The report stated, ''Dividend investors approaching investing from a value standpoint are generally most interested in researching the strongest most profitable companies, that also happen to be trading at an attractive valuation. That's what we aim to find using our proprietary DividendRank formula, which ranks the coverage universe based upon our various criteria for both profitability and valuation, to generate a list of the top most 'interesting' stocks, meant for investors as a source of ideas that merit further research.''
The current annualized dividend paid by Associated Banc-Corp is $0.72/share, currently paid in quarterly installments, and its most recent dividend has an upcoming ex-date of 08/31/2020. Below is a long-term dividend history chart for ASB, which the report stressed as being of key importance. Indeed, studying a company's past dividend history can be of good help in judging whether the most recent dividend is likely to continue.
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