Costamare Inc Has High Profit Margin And High Dividend Yield

Many Greek shipping stocks are appealing now based on income, growth and value investing approaches. Costamare Inc (NYSE: CMRE) has a profit margin of 22.40% and a dividend yield of 8.55%. A profit margin of 20% is considered high. For a member of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, the average dividend is around 2%.

For a shipping stock to still be around and operating profitably with a healthy dividend yield is impressive, in itself. Also impressive for Costamare Inc is the return-on-equity of 22.34%. The operating profit margin of 44.01% is very strong, too; as is the gross margin of 98.25%. These manifest strong management at the company that endured the most trying of times.

Next year, earnings-per-share growth is expected to increase by 25.74%. That is a bullish trend from the previous five years. The Great Recession was devastating to the shipping industry. In the boom years before 2008, shippers overbuilt. When The Great Recession hit, there was a fall in business which led to shipping rates plunging. Exacerbating this situation was the huge debt loads that many shippers assumed to build new vessels for business that never materialized.

The current economic climate has made the sector outlook even grimmer for many individual shippers. For the overall sector, the double dip recession and debt crisis in Europe combined with declining economic growth has been debilitating for global shipping. The Guggenheim Shipping exchange traded fund, (NYSE: SEA), is down more than 10% for the last six months of market action.

Now trading around $12.73, the mean analyst target price for Costamare Inc . over the next year is $17.75. At just 1.40%, the short float is tiny. With its high dividend yield and upside, Costamare Inc could return very solid total returns when the global economy comes back and shipping is riding high again.