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

Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, December 17th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 27th will be given a dividend of 0.02 per share by the transportation company on Wednesday, January 8th. This represents a $0.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 27th.

Heartland Express has a dividend payout ratio of 72.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Heartland Express to earn $0.22 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 36.4%.

Heartland Express Price Performance

Shares of HTLD opened at $11.49 on Thursday. Heartland Express has a 1-year low of $9.63 and a 1-year high of $14.60. The firm has a market capitalization of $901.93 million, a PE ratio of -39.62 and a beta of 0.75. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a current ratio of 1.17 and a quick ratio of 1.17. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $11.88 and its 200-day moving average price is $12.04.

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

Insider Activity at Heartland Express

In related news, CEO Michael J. Gerdin bought 63,074 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 4th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $10.95 per share, for a total transaction of $690,660.30. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,259,792 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $13,794,722.40. This represents a 5.27 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Ann S. Gerdin Revocable Trust acquired 49,506 shares of Heartland Express stock in a transaction on Monday, November 18th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $12.24 per share, for a total transaction of $605,953.44. Following the purchase, the insider now owns 898,584 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,998,668.16. This represents a 5.83 % increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders bought 153,750 shares of company stock worth $1,786,918. 39.60% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on HTLD shares. Barclays upped their target price on shares of Heartland Express from $10.00 to $11.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 13th. UBS Group dropped their target price on shares of Heartland Express from $13.00 to $12.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and three have issued a hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Heartland Express presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $11.75.

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.