Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc. (NASDAQ:HST) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.20

Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc. (NASDAQ:HST) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, December 11th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be paid a dividend of 0.20 per share on Wednesday, January 15th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.23%.

Host Hotels & Resorts has raised its dividend payment by an average of 48.1% annually over the last three years. Host Hotels & Resorts has a payout ratio of 87.0% indicating that its dividend is currently covered by earnings, but may not be in the future if the company’s earnings decline. Analysts expect Host Hotels & Resorts to earn $1.95 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 41.0%.

Host Hotels & Resorts Stock Down 0.7 %

NASDAQ HST traded down $0.14 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $18.93. 6,230,524 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 6,831,792. Host Hotels & Resorts has a 52 week low of $15.71 and a 52 week high of $21.31. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $17.90 and its 200-day simple moving average is $17.68. The company has a market cap of $13.23 billion, a PE ratio of 18.51 and a beta of 1.32. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 2.90 and a quick ratio of 2.90.

Host Hotels & Resorts (NASDAQ:HST) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The company reported $0.12 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.36 by ($0.24). The business had revenue of $1.32 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.29 billion. Host Hotels & Resorts had a return on equity of 10.72% and a net margin of 12.92%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 8.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.41 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Host Hotels & Resorts will post 1.94 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have weighed in on HST. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price target on Host Hotels & Resorts from $21.00 to $20.50 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, November 22nd. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Host Hotels & Resorts from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Truist Financial decreased their price target on shares of Host Hotels & Resorts from $23.00 to $20.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, September 4th. Evercore ISI dropped their price objective on shares of Host Hotels & Resorts from $23.00 to $21.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, August 13th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Host Hotels & Resorts from $21.00 to $22.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Host Hotels & Resorts currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $21.39.

About Host Hotels & Resorts

Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc is an S&P 500 company and is the largest lodging real estate investment trust and one of the largest owners of luxury and upper-upscale hotels. The Company currently owns 72 properties in the United States and five properties internationally totaling approximately 42,000 rooms.