New investors often make the mistake of chasing high-yielding stocks without giving enough thought to the quality of those companies and the sustainability of the dividends. With real estate investment trusts (REITs), one way to assess whether a company can continue paying out the current dividend in the future is to look at the dividend amount in relation to the forward funds from operations (FFO) with a simple formula called the "payout ratio." The payout ratio is derived by dividing the annua