EQT Co. (NYSE:EQT) to Issue $0.16 Quarterly Dividend

EQT Co. (NYSE:EQT) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, October 10th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 6th will be paid a dividend of 0.1575 per share by the oil and gas producer on Monday, December 2nd. This represents a $0.63 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.71%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, November 6th.

EQT has increased its dividend payment by an average of 172.6% per year over the last three years. EQT has a payout ratio of 21.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect EQT to earn $3.42 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.63 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 18.4%.

EQT Stock Up 3.3 %

Shares of EQT opened at $36.80 on Tuesday. EQT has a 52-week low of $30.02 and a 52-week high of $44.47. The company has a market capitalization of $16.25 billion, a PE ratio of 43.81 and a beta of 1.06. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $35.31 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $36.61. The company has a quick ratio of 0.51, a current ratio of 0.51 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65.

EQT (NYSE:EQT) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The oil and gas producer reported $0.12 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.06 by $0.06. EQT had a return on equity of 3.74% and a net margin of 5.52%. The firm had revenue of $1.28 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.35 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.30 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 8.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that EQT will post 1.42 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on EQT. UBS Group lifted their price objective on EQT from $40.00 to $42.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $45.00 price objective on shares of EQT in a report on Friday, September 13th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on EQT from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, October 4th. Scotiabank upped their price objective on EQT from $54.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, July 12th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded EQT to a “sell” rating in a research note on Friday, July 26th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $42.61.

About EQT

EQT Corporation operates as a natural gas production company in the United States. The company sells natural gas and natural gas liquids to marketers, utilities, and industrial customers through pipelines located in the Appalachian Basin. It also offers marketing services and contractual pipeline capacity management services.