First Busey (NASDAQ:BUSE) Releases Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.01 EPS

First Busey (NASDAQ:BUSE) announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday. The bank reported $0.53 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.52 by $0.01, Zacks reports. First Busey had a net margin of 16.94% and a return on equity of 8.94%.

First Busey Price Performance

BUSE traded down $0.08 on Tuesday, reaching $23.45. The company had a trading volume of 591,070 shares, compared to its average volume of 351,792. First Busey has a 52-week low of $21.59 and a 52-week high of $28.97. The company has a market cap of $1.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.09 and a beta of 0.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a current ratio of 0.82. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $24.75 and a 200 day simple moving average of $25.56.

First Busey Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 24th will be issued a dividend of $0.25 per share. This is a positive change from First Busey’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 24th. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.26%. First Busey’s payout ratio is presently 49.48%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their target price on shares of First Busey from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 4th. Stephens cut First Busey from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and decreased their price target for the company from $28.00 to $27.00 in a research report on Monday, October 14th.

About First Busey

First Busey Corporation operates as the bank holding company for Busey Bank that engages in the provision of retail and commercial banking products and services to individual, corporate, institutional, and governmental customers in the United States. It operates through three segments: Banking, Wealth Management, and FirsTech.