Equity Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQBK) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.15

Equity Bancshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQBK) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, December 18th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be given a dividend of 0.15 per share by the bank on Wednesday, January 15th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.38%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 31st.

Equity Bancshares has a dividend payout ratio of 16.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Equity Bancshares to earn $3.87 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 15.5%.

Equity Bancshares Trading Down 4.4 %

Equity Bancshares stock opened at $43.51 on Thursday. Equity Bancshares has a 12-month low of $30.44 and a 12-month high of $50.85. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.78, a current ratio of 0.86 and a quick ratio of 0.86. The stock has a market capitalization of $665.27 million, a PE ratio of 39.55 and a beta of 0.90. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $45.57 and a 200-day simple moving average of $40.49.

Equity Bancshares (NASDAQ:EQBK) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 15th. The bank reported $1.31 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.99 by $0.32. Equity Bancshares had a return on equity of 13.53% and a net margin of 6.36%. The firm had revenue of $55.35 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $55.77 million. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Equity Bancshares will post 4.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently commented on EQBK. DA Davidson boosted their target price on shares of Equity Bancshares from $42.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price target on Equity Bancshares from $43.00 to $48.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 4th. Finally, Stephens raised Equity Bancshares from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $46.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday, October 14th.

Equity Bancshares Company Profile

Equity Bancshares, Inc operates as the bank holding company for Equity Bank that provides a range of banking, mortgage banking, and financial services to individual and corporate customers. The company accepts various demand, savings, money market, and time deposits. Its loan products include commercial and industrial, commercial real estate, commercial lines of credit, working capital, term, equipment and aircraft financing, acquisition, expansion and development, borrowing base, real estate construction, homebuilder, agricultural, government guaranteed, and other loan products.