Heartland Express, Inc. (HTLD) To Go Ex-Dividend on September 27th

Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, August 6th, Zacks reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 27th will be paid a dividend of 0.02 per share by the transportation company on Monday, October 7th. This represents a $0.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.66%. 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. 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 Trading Up 1.5 %

Shares of NASDAQ HTLD opened at $12.14 on Wednesday. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $12.32 and a 200 day moving average price of $11.73. Heartland Express has a 52-week low of $9.63 and a 52-week high of $15.56. The company has a current ratio of 1.23, a quick ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27.

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

Insider Transactions at Heartland Express

In other Heartland Express news, CEO Michael J. Gerdin bought 50,000 shares of Heartland Express stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 11th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $11.67 per share, with a total value of $583,500.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,196,718 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $13,965,699.06. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Insiders own 39.60% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

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