Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL) Increases Dividend to $0.58 Per Share

Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL) declared a quarterly dividend on Monday, December 2nd,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, February 19th will be paid a dividend of 0.58 per share by the financial services provider on Monday, March 3rd. This represents a $2.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.15%. This is an increase from Aflac’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50.

Aflac has raised its dividend by an average of 14.5% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 43 years. Aflac has a dividend payout ratio of 27.9% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Aflac to earn $7.21 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 27.7%.

Aflac Trading Down 3.3 %

Shares of Aflac stock traded down $3.65 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $107.75. 604,549 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,202,218. Aflac has a 1 year low of $75.07 and a 1 year high of $115.50. The firm has a market cap of $59.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a quick ratio of 0.08, a current ratio of 0.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $111.23 and its 200 day moving average is $101.63.

Aflac (NYSE:AFL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The financial services provider reported $2.16 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.69 by $0.47. Aflac had a net margin of 22.02% and a return on equity of 16.34%. The business had revenue of $2.95 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.30 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.84 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 40.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Aflac will post 7.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have weighed in on the company. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on Aflac from $91.00 to $98.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday, August 19th. TD Cowen initiated coverage on shares of Aflac in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. They issued a “hold” rating and a $102.00 target price on the stock. Evercore ISI raised their target price on shares of Aflac from $84.00 to $90.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on Aflac to $107.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Bank of America raised their price target on Aflac from $115.00 to $124.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 10th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $97.93.

About Aflac

Aflac Incorporated, through its subsidiaries, provides supplemental health and life insurance products. The company operates through Aflac Japan and Aflac U.S. segments. The Aflac Japan segment offers cancer, medical, nursing care, work leave, GIFT, and whole and term life insurance products, as well as WAYS and child endowment plans under saving type insurance products in Japan.