Heartland Express (NASDAQ:HTLD) Price Target Raised to $11.00

Heartland Express (NASDAQ:HTLD) had its price objective upped by Barclays from $10.00 to $11.00 in a report published on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an underweight rating on the transportation company’s stock.

A number of other research firms also recently weighed in on HTLD. UBS Group dropped their price target on Heartland Express from $13.00 to $12.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. StockNews.com raised Heartland Express from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and three have issued a hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $11.75.

Heartland Express Stock Down 1.8 %

HTLD stock opened at $12.20 on Wednesday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $11.76 and its 200 day simple moving average is $11.87. Heartland Express has a fifty-two week low of $9.63 and a fifty-two week high of $14.60. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a quick ratio of 1.23 and a current ratio of 1.17. The company has a market cap of $957.70 million, a P/E ratio of -42.07 and a beta of 0.71.

Heartland Express (NASDAQ:HTLD) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The transportation company reported ($0.12) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.01) by ($0.11). Heartland Express had a negative return on equity of 2.70% and a negative net margin of 2.11%. The firm had revenue of $259.86 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $268.35 million. During the same period last year, the company posted ($0.14) earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 11.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts expect that Heartland Express will post -0.38 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other Heartland Express news, CEO Michael J. Gerdin bought 35,960 shares of Heartland Express stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 8th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $11.97 per share, with a total value of $430,441.20. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,311,913 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,703,598.61. The trade was a 2.82 % increase in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Insiders acquired a total of 154,244 shares of company stock valued at $1,764,464 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 39.60% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Heartland Express

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Heartland Express by 2.7% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 852,557 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $10,469,000 after acquiring an additional 22,448 shares in the last quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC raised its position in shares of Heartland Express by 14.6% in the first quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 666,675 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $7,960,000 after buying an additional 84,739 shares in the last quarter. Weiss Asset Management LP purchased a new stake in shares of Heartland Express in the third quarter worth $6,634,000. Burgundy Asset Management Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of Heartland Express in the second quarter worth $5,584,000. Finally, Empowered Funds LLC raised its position in shares of Heartland Express by 5.3% in the third quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 256,171 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $3,146,000 after buying an additional 12,998 shares in the last quarter. 53.45% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Heartland Express

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.