This investor payment still looks safe

Article Excerpt

T. ROWE PRICE GROUP INC. $93 is a buy for the Financial sector portion of your portfolio. The company (Nasdaq symbol TROW; High-Growth Dividend Payer Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 236.0 million; Market cap: $21.9 billion; Dividend yield: 3.9%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Highest; www.troweprice.com) is a leading seller of mutual funds and wealth management services. With the March 2020 payment, T. Rowe Price raised your quarterly dividend by 18.4%, to $0.90 a share from $0.76. The new annual rate of $3.60 yields 3.9%. The company has now increased the annual dividend rate for investors each year for the past 34 years. T. Rowe Price’s fee income rises with the value of the mutual funds and other securities it manages. As a result of a sharp drop in stock markets due to the COVID-19 outbreak, its assets under administration fell 4.7% to $1.15 trillion as of February 29, 2020, compared to the end of 2019. However, the dividend still looks secure: dividends in 2019 accounted for just…