EQT Co. (NYSE:EQT) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.16

EQT Co. (NYSE:EQT) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, April 17th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 8th will be given a dividend of 0.1575 per share by the oil and gas producer on Saturday, June 1st. This represents a $0.63 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.75%.

EQT has raised its dividend payment by an average of 172.6% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 2 years. EQT has a payout ratio of 15.5% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect EQT to earn $4.53 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.63 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 13.9%.

EQT Price Performance

EQT stock opened at $36.03 on Thursday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $35.85 and a 200-day moving average of $38.09. EQT has a 12-month low of $30.84 and a 12-month high of $45.23. The company has a current ratio of 0.99, a quick ratio of 0.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37. The company has a market cap of $15.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.48 and a beta of 1.12.

EQT (NYSE:EQT) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 13th. The oil and gas producer reported $0.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.47 by $0.01. EQT had a net margin of 25.12% and a return on equity of 7.12%. The company had revenue of $1.55 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.58 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.42 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 17.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that EQT will post 1.4 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on EQT. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of EQT from an “underperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $27.00 to $34.00 in a research note on Wednesday, April 10th. Wells Fargo & Company cut shares of EQT from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $48.00 to $37.00 in a research note on Wednesday. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of EQT from $45.00 to $47.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 7th. Mizuho raised their price objective on shares of EQT from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, Scotiabank raised shares of EQT from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $40.00 to $52.00 in a research note on Thursday, April 11th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, EQT has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $43.13.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On EQT

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. FIL Ltd increased its position in EQT by 0.4% during the fourth quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 1,833,524 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $70,884,000 after purchasing an additional 7,386 shares during the last quarter. Hobbs Group Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of EQT in the fourth quarter worth $114,000. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio increased its position in shares of EQT by 2.8% in the fourth quarter. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio now owns 157,906 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $6,105,000 after acquiring an additional 4,264 shares in the last quarter. Chartwell Investment Partners LLC increased its position in shares of EQT by 2.4% in the fourth quarter. Chartwell Investment Partners LLC now owns 72,134 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $2,788,000 after acquiring an additional 1,685 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its position in shares of EQT by 52.8% in the fourth quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,265,260 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $87,575,000 after acquiring an additional 782,619 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.81% of the company’s stock.

About EQT

EQT Corporation operates as a natural gas production company in the United States. The company sells natural gas and natural gas liquids to marketers, utilities, and industrial customers through pipelines located in the Appalachian Basin. It also offers marketing services and contractual pipeline capacity management services.