SM Energy (NYSE:SM) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.20

SM Energy (NYSE:SM) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, March 27th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be given a dividend of 0.20 per share by the energy company on Monday, May 5th. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.72%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th.

SM Energy has raised its dividend payment by an average of 236.2% per year over the last three years. SM Energy has a dividend payout ratio of 11.6% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect SM Energy to earn $7.95 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 10.1%.

SM Energy Trading Down 2.8 %

NYSE SM opened at $29.42 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 3.52, a current ratio of 0.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $34.68 and a 200-day moving average price of $39.40. SM Energy has a 52 week low of $26.66 and a 52 week high of $53.26. The company has a market cap of $3.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.40 and a beta of 4.14.

SM Energy (NYSE:SM) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The energy company reported $1.91 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.00 by ($0.09). SM Energy had a net margin of 28.63% and a return on equity of 19.82%. The business had revenue of $852.22 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $849.44 million. As a group, equities analysts expect that SM Energy will post 8.1 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other SM Energy news, Director Barton R. Brookman, Jr. bought 7,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $32.36 per share, with a total value of $226,520.00. Following the acquisition, the director now directly owns 14,666 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $474,591.76. The trade was a 91.31 % increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Insiders own 1.50% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have issued reports on SM. Mizuho reduced their price objective on shares of SM Energy from $57.00 to $55.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Truist Financial lifted their price target on SM Energy from $42.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on SM Energy from $45.00 to $33.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday. Williams Trading set a $41.00 target price on SM Energy in a research note on Wednesday, March 5th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of SM Energy from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $48.00.

About SM Energy

SM Energy Company, an independent energy company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and production of oil, gas, and natural gas liquids in the state of Texas. It has working interests in oil and gas producing wells in the Midland Basin and South Texas. The company was formerly known as St.