QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM) Announces $0.85 Quarterly Dividend

QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, January 17th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, March 6th will be paid a dividend of 0.85 per share by the wireless technology company on Thursday, March 27th. This represents a $3.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.07%.

QUALCOMM has raised its dividend by an average of 7.2% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 22 years. QUALCOMM has a payout ratio of 27.6% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect QUALCOMM to earn $10.50 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.40 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 32.4%.

QUALCOMM Stock Up 2.0 %

Shares of QUALCOMM stock traded up $3.21 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $164.64. 1,217,130 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 6,536,742. The stock has a market cap of $182.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.36, a P/E/G ratio of 2.63 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a 50 day moving average of $159.21 and a two-hundred day moving average of $169.34. The company has a current ratio of 2.40, a quick ratio of 1.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51. QUALCOMM has a fifty-two week low of $139.26 and a fifty-two week high of $230.63.

QUALCOMM (NASDAQ:QCOM) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The wireless technology company reported $2.26 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.01 by $0.25. QUALCOMM had a net margin of 26.03% and a return on equity of 38.81%. The firm had revenue of $10.24 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.90 billion. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that QUALCOMM will post 9.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on QCOM. StockNews.com cut QUALCOMM from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. KeyCorp downgraded shares of QUALCOMM from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 8th. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of QUALCOMM from $207.00 to $204.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of QUALCOMM from $185.00 to $190.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price objective on shares of QUALCOMM from $210.00 to $195.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, November 5th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, fourteen have assigned a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $206.57.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, General Counsel Ann C. Chaplin sold 2,587 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $158.12, for a total transaction of $409,056.44. Following the sale, the general counsel now owns 19,739 shares in the company, valued at $3,121,130.68. The trade was a 11.59 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Neil Martin sold 1,304 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $155.00, for a total value of $202,120.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 94 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,570. This represents a 93.28 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 26,882 shares of company stock valued at $4,314,649. 0.08% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About QUALCOMM

QUALCOMM Incorporated engages in the development and commercialization of foundational technologies for the wireless industry worldwide. It operates through three segments: Qualcomm CDMA Technologies (QCT); Qualcomm Technology Licensing (QTL); and Qualcomm Strategic Initiatives (QSI). The QCT segment develops and supplies integrated circuits and system software based on 3G/4G/5G and other technologies for use in wireless voice and data communications, networking, computing, multimedia, and position location products.