ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc. (ZTO) To Go Ex-Dividend on April 10th

ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc. (NYSE:ZTO) announced a semi-annual dividend on Tuesday, March 18th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a dividend of 0.35 per share by the transportation company on Tuesday, April 29th. This represents a yield of 4.7%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 10th.

ZTO Express (Cayman) has a dividend payout ratio of 34.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect ZTO Express (Cayman) to earn $1.71 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.70 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 40.9%.

ZTO Express (Cayman) Stock Down 7.3 %

ZTO stock traded down $1.60 during trading on Thursday, hitting $20.17. 4,347,761 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,084,104. ZTO Express has a 52 week low of $17.89 and a 52 week high of $27.50. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $19.48 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $20.99. The stock has a market capitalization of $12.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.03 and a beta of -0.13.

ZTO Express (Cayman) (NYSE:ZTO) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, March 18th. The transportation company reported $0.44 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.47 by ($0.03). ZTO Express (Cayman) had a net margin of 20.56% and a return on equity of 15.44%. The business had revenue of $1.77 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $11.73 billion. As a group, equities research analysts expect that ZTO Express will post 1.57 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have weighed in on ZTO. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered shares of ZTO Express (Cayman) from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their target price for the company from $25.00 to $23.00 in a research note on Thursday. StockNews.com lowered shares of ZTO Express (Cayman) from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday. HSBC lowered shares of ZTO Express (Cayman) from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $28.00 to $20.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, Hsbc Global Res lowered shares of ZTO Express (Cayman) from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $22.78.

ZTO Express (Cayman) Company Profile

ZTO Express (Cayman) Inc provides express delivery and other value-added logistics services in the People's Republic of China. It offers freight forwarding services; and delivery services for e-commerce and traditional merchants, and other express service users. The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Shanghai, the People's Republic of China.