Southern Missouri Bancorp, Inc. to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.23 (NASDAQ:SMBC)

Southern Missouri Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:SMBC) announced a quarterly dividend on Monday, January 27th,Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 14th will be paid a dividend of 0.23 per share by the savings and loans company on Friday, February 28th. This represents a $0.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.58%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 14th.

Southern Missouri Bancorp has raised its dividend payment by an average of 6.9% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 13 years. Southern Missouri Bancorp has a dividend payout ratio of 17.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Southern Missouri Bancorp to earn $5.30 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.92 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 17.4%.

Southern Missouri Bancorp Price Performance

Shares of Southern Missouri Bancorp stock opened at $58.10 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.26, a current ratio of 0.98 and a quick ratio of 0.98. The company has a market cap of $655.37 million, a PE ratio of 13.36 and a beta of 0.99. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $60.33 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $57.55. Southern Missouri Bancorp has a fifty-two week low of $39.00 and a fifty-two week high of $68.69.

Southern Missouri Bancorp (NASDAQ:SMBC) last released its earnings results on Monday, January 27th. The savings and loans company reported $1.30 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.23 by $0.07. Southern Missouri Bancorp had a return on equity of 10.18% and a net margin of 17.44%. Analysts expect that Southern Missouri Bancorp will post 4.75 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on SMBC. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on Southern Missouri Bancorp from $62.00 to $66.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Stephens raised their price objective on shares of Southern Missouri Bancorp from $70.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th.

Insider Buying and Selling at Southern Missouri Bancorp

In other news, Director William E. Young sold 3,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.90, for a total transaction of $179,700.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 48,649 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,914,075.10. This represents a 5.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Corporate insiders own 16.60% of the company’s stock.

About Southern Missouri Bancorp

Southern Missouri Bancorp, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Southern Bank that provides banking and financial services to individuals and corporate customers in the United States. The company offers deposits products, including interest-bearing and noninterest-bearing transaction accounts, saving accounts, certificates of deposit, retirement savings plans, and money market deposit accounts.