Gold Fields Limited (NYSE:GFI) Announces Semi-annual Dividend of $0.38

Gold Fields Limited (NYSE:GFI) announced a semi-annual dividend on Wednesday, March 5th, Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be given a dividend of 0.3752 per share on Thursday, March 27th. This represents a dividend yield of 1.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 14th. This is a 121.8% increase from Gold Fields’s previous semi-annual dividend of $0.17.

Gold Fields has increased its dividend payment by an average of 2.4% per year over the last three years. Gold Fields has a payout ratio of 14.8% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Gold Fields to earn $2.18 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.34 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 15.6%.

Gold Fields Stock Performance

NYSE:GFI traded up $0.45 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $19.47. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,798,212 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,982,022. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $16.62 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $15.65. The company has a market capitalization of $17.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.30 and a beta of 1.14. Gold Fields has a 12 month low of $12.98 and a 12 month high of $19.80.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on GFI shares. Scotiabank raised their price objective on Gold Fields from $18.00 to $20.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 25th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on shares of Gold Fields from $17.10 to $18.80 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 15th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Gold Fields from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 21st. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Gold Fields has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $17.20.

About Gold Fields

Gold Fields Limited operates as a gold producer with reserves and resources in Chile, South Africa, Ghana, Canada, Australia, and Peru. It also explores for copper and silver deposits. The company was founded in 1887 and is based in Sandton, South Africa.