American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE:AWK) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.77

American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE:AWK) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, May 1st, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, May 14th will be given a dividend of 0.765 per share by the utilities provider on Monday, June 3rd. This represents a $3.06 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.48%. This is an increase from American Water Works’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.71.

American Water Works has raised its dividend payment by an average of 8.9% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 16 years. American Water Works has a payout ratio of 49.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect American Water Works to earn $5.68 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.83 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 49.8%.

American Water Works Trading Up 0.9 %

Shares of AWK stock traded up $1.15 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $123.47. 314,499 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,450,141. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $119.14 and its 200 day simple moving average is $124.27. The stock has a market cap of $24.05 billion, a PE ratio of 25.01, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 0.63. American Water Works has a 12 month low of $113.34 and a 12 month high of $151.24. The company has a quick ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 0.65 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.20.

American Water Works (NYSE:AWK) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 15th. The utilities provider reported $0.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.84 by $0.04. American Water Works had a net margin of 22.30% and a return on equity of 9.70%. The firm had revenue of $1.03 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.02 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.81 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that American Water Works will post 5.24 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on AWK. Evercore ISI downgraded shares of American Water Works from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $160.00 to $135.00 in a research note on Friday, February 16th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of American Water Works from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 3rd.

Insider Buying and Selling at American Water Works

In other news, EVP Melanie M. Kennedy sold 843 shares of American Water Works stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.59, for a total transaction of $100,814.37. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 16,240 shares in the company, valued at $1,942,141.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders own 0.08% of the company’s stock.

About American Water Works

American Water Works Company, Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides water and wastewater services in the United States. It offers water and wastewater services to approximately 1,700 communities in 14 states serving approximately 3.5 million active customers. The company serves residential customers; commercial customers, including food and beverage providers, commercial property developers and proprietors, and energy suppliers; fire service and private fire customers; industrial customers, such as large-scale manufacturers, mining, and production operations; public authorities comprising government buildings and other public sector facilities, such as schools and universities; and other utilities and community water and wastewater systems.