Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) to Issue $0.02 Quarterly Dividend

Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, August 6th, Zacks reports. Investors of record on Friday, September 27th will be given a dividend of 0.02 per share by the transportation company on Monday, October 7th. This represents a $0.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.67%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 27th.

Heartland Express has a dividend payout ratio of 22.2% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Heartland Express to earn $0.48 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 16.7%.

Heartland Express Stock Down 1.6 %

NASDAQ:HTLD opened at $11.95 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.23, a quick ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $12.30 and a 200-day moving average of $11.74. The firm has a market capitalization of $944.66 million, a PE ratio of -70.29 and a beta of 0.69. Heartland Express has a 52 week low of $9.63 and a 52 week high of $15.56.

Heartland Express (NASDAQ:HTLD) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The transportation company reported ($0.04) EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.06) by $0.02. The business had revenue of $274.80 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $275.23 million. Heartland Express had a negative net margin of 2.17% and a negative return on equity of 2.84%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 10.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.10 earnings per share. Analysts predict that Heartland Express will post -0.17 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Heartland Express

In other Heartland Express news, CEO Michael J. Gerdin bought 50,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 11th. The shares were bought at an average price of $11.67 per share, for a total transaction of $583,500.00. Following the acquisition, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,196,718 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $13,965,699.06. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 39.60% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have recently commented on HTLD shares. UBS Group lowered Heartland Express from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their price target for the company from $15.00 to $13.00 in a report on Tuesday, July 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. restated an “underweight” rating and set a $10.00 price objective (down previously from $12.00) on shares of Heartland Express in a research report on Tuesday, July 9th. Barclays lifted their target price on Heartland Express from $10.00 to $11.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a report on Thursday, August 1st. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Heartland Express from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and three have given a hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $12.00.

Heartland Express Company Profile

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.