Heartland Express, Inc. Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.02 (NASDAQ:HTLD)

Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, November 20th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 27th will be paid a dividend of 0.02 per share by the transportation company on Wednesday, January 8th. This represents a $0.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.72%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 27th.

Heartland Express has a payout ratio of 72.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Heartland Express to earn $0.22 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.08 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 36.4%.

Heartland Express Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of HTLD stock opened at $11.13 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a quick ratio of 1.17 and a current ratio of 1.17. Heartland Express has a fifty-two week low of $9.63 and a fifty-two week high of $14.60. The firm has a market capitalization of $873.67 million, a PE ratio of -38.38 and a beta of 0.75. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $11.86 and its 200-day simple moving average is $12.03.

Heartland Express (NASDAQ:HTLD) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The transportation company reported ($0.12) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.01) by ($0.11). Heartland Express had a negative return on equity of 2.70% and a negative net margin of 2.11%. The business had revenue of $259.86 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $268.35 million. During the same quarter last year, the company posted ($0.14) EPS. Heartland Express’s quarterly revenue was down 11.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts expect that Heartland Express will post -0.38 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently issued reports on HTLD. UBS Group reduced their target price on shares of Heartland Express from $13.00 to $12.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Barclays boosted their price objective on Heartland Express from $10.00 to $11.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 13th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and three have issued a hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $11.75.

Insider Transactions at Heartland Express

In other Heartland Express news, CEO Michael J. Gerdin bought 5,210 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 6th. The stock was bought at an average price of $11.49 per share, with a total value of $59,862.90. Following the completion of the purchase, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,265,002 shares in the company, valued at $14,534,872.98. The trade was a 0.41 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, major shareholder Ann S. Gerdin Revocable Trust purchased 49,506 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 18th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $12.24 per share, with a total value of $605,953.44. Following the completion of the acquisition, the insider now owns 898,584 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,998,668.16. This trade represents a 5.83 % increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders have bought 153,750 shares of company stock valued at $1,786,918 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 39.60% of the company’s stock.

About Heartland Express

Heartland Express, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a short-to-medium, and long-haul truckload carrier in the United States and Canada. It primarily provides nationwide asset-based dry van truckload service for shippers; cross-border freight and other transportation services; and temperature-controlled truckload services.