Steel Dynamics, Inc. (NASDAQ:STLD) Declares Dividend Increase – $0.50 Per Share

Steel Dynamics, Inc. (NASDAQ:STLD) declared a quarterly dividend on Monday, February 24th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Monday, March 31st will be given a dividend of 0.50 per share by the basic materials company on Friday, April 11th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.53%. This is a boost from Steel Dynamics’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.46.

Steel Dynamics has raised its dividend by an average of 21.0% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 12 years. Steel Dynamics has a payout ratio of 15.1% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Steel Dynamics to earn $12.10 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.84 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 15.2%.

Steel Dynamics Stock Performance

NASDAQ STLD opened at $130.71 on Monday. The company’s fifty day moving average is $123.78 and its two-hundred day moving average is $126.89. Steel Dynamics has a 52-week low of $104.60 and a 52-week high of $155.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a current ratio of 2.53 and a quick ratio of 1.08. The firm has a market capitalization of $19.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.34, a P/E/G ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.35.

Steel Dynamics (NASDAQ:STLD) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 22nd. The basic materials company reported $1.36 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.69 by ($0.33). Steel Dynamics had a return on equity of 17.32% and a net margin of 8.76%. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.61 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that Steel Dynamics will post 9.01 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently issued reports on STLD. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on shares of Steel Dynamics from $134.00 to $132.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 17th. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on Steel Dynamics from $131.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, February 3rd. StockNews.com upgraded Steel Dynamics from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. UBS Group reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $149.00 price objective (up from $145.00) on shares of Steel Dynamics in a report on Thursday, December 12th. Finally, KeyCorp raised shares of Steel Dynamics from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $155.00 target price on the stock in a report on Tuesday, February 11th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $146.22.

Insider Buying and Selling at Steel Dynamics

In other news, SVP Glenn Pushis sold 23,649 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $134.67, for a total transaction of $3,184,810.83. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 122,140 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $16,448,593.80. This represents a 16.22 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Corporate insiders own 6.00% of the company’s stock.

Steel Dynamics Company Profile

Steel Dynamics, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a steel producer and metal recycler in the United States. The Steel Operations segment offers hot rolled, cold rolled, and coated steel products; parallel flange beams and channel sections, flat bars, large unequal leg angles, and reinforcing steel bars, as well as standard strength carbon, intermediate alloy hardness, and premium grade rail products; engineered special-bar-quality products, merchant-bar-quality products, and other engineered round steel bars; channels, angles, flats, merchant rounds, and reinforcing steel bars; and specialty shapes and light structural steel products.