Newbie doubt

[Gonzaga G.]

Hi,  I have just recently discovered the dividends way of investing.

But I'd want to purchase those stocks whose dividend is less than 75% of the net income of the company, as the book 'get rich with dividends' tells..

I see the excel file has not the net income of the companies. So I go to Yahoo financials and I search the stocks of the excel file and look for net income and dividends paid.

I am not sure what is the net income of the financial statment in yahoo or anywhere: 

Should I divide 

'Cash Dividends Paid' / 'net income from continuing operations' 

or should I divide 

'Cash Dividends Paid' / 'free cash flow' 

There is a huge differnece between free cash flow and net income..

I attach an example in the comany Enbridge Inc. (ENB)  

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ENB/cash-flow?p=ENB

Thanks a lot in advance!

[GLSmyth]

I believe that you are talking about the Payout Ratio.  

To start, here is the article I wrote back in November about Enbridge: https://www.dripinvesting.org/articles/blog-article.asp?t=Future_Dividend_Champions_-_Enbridge

With that specific company the Payout Ratio is not as straightforward as with other companies, as you will read in the article.

Personally, I make things easy by using Stock Rover, which has the Payout Ratio already calculated for you.  It is currently showing Enbridge at 104%, but read the article to understand why this number, which is one of my primary markers when making a decision, was not of concern to me.

Cheers -

george