On April 13, we discussed the challenges facing National Health Investors (NHI) due to the COVID-19 crisis:  Overall, the pandemic has increased NHI's risk profile. The REIT has some of the highest exposure to senior housing and skilled nursing, two areas of healthcare that could face the most pressure from the coronavirus outbreak.Coupled with NHI's small scale and its growing number of communities reporting positive COVID-19 tests, some of its weaker tenants may eventually need NHI to reduce their rent if these headwinds intensify or persist. Since then, conditions in the senior housing industry (nearly 70% of revenues) have continued deteriorating. Based on our analysis below, we believe there is increased risk that NHI could reduce its dividend this summer as pressure [...]

Polaris had good news for dividend investors yesterday when the company announced its regular quarterly payout and shared a brief business update. Earlier this month, we cited concerns about Polaris' leverage ratio (total debt to EBITDA) rising as cash flow declined due to closed dealerships, supply chain disruptions, and high unemployment crimping demand for the firm's products. The immediate concern for the maker of off-road vehicles is rising leverage as cash flow experiences a major shock. Polaris may be at risk of breaching certain financial covenants with lenders, which could threaten the dividend.Moreover, management may opt to be especially conservative with cash as unemployment reaches record highs, crimping demand for the company's high-price products (ATVs, snowmobiles, boats, and motorcycles)....In fact, management expects wholesale demand to drop [...]

Altria (MO) shares have slumped over 20% since December 2018 when management announced plans to pay $12.8 billion for a 35% stake in e-vapor leader Juul. During that period, international cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris has seen its stock price appreciate about 7%, and the S&P 500 has gained 22%. Put simply, Altria's untimely investment in Juul has created nothing but headaches for the business and its shareholders (more on that later). Some investors now question if the Marlboro maker's dividend is safe given the stock's unusually high yield near 9%. Altria has had a Borderline Safe Dividend Safety Score since September 2019, and we expect the dividend to remain safe for now. Altria should continue covering its dividend with free cash flow this [...]

TJX Companies (TJX) reported earnings on Thursday and officially suspended its dividend through at least the second quarter. The off-price retailer closed all of its stores and online businesses in mid-March, resulting in an unprecedented decline in sales and cash flow. On March 20, we downgraded TJX's Dividend Safety Score to Borderline Safe given risk that stores would stay closed for a longer period of time, increasing the company's need to preserve liquidity: However, if management begins to believe that its stores may be closed for much longer than two weeks, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the dividend could be temporarily suspended to preserve cash out of an abundance of caution. On April 9, we downgraded the company's Dividend Safety Score to Unsafe as it became clearer [...]