Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL) Raises Dividend to $0.58 Per Share

Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL) declared a quarterly dividend on Monday, December 2nd,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, February 19th will be given a dividend of 0.58 per share by the financial services provider on Monday, March 3rd. This represents a $2.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.15%. This is a positive change from Aflac’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50.

Aflac has increased its dividend payment by an average of 14.5% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 43 consecutive years. Aflac has a dividend payout ratio of 27.9% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Aflac to earn $7.21 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 27.7%.

Aflac Trading Down 3.3 %

Shares of NYSE:AFL traded down $3.65 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $107.75. The stock had a trading volume of 604,549 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,202,218. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $111.23 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $101.63. Aflac has a twelve month low of $75.07 and a twelve month high of $115.50. The firm has a market cap of $59.86 billion, a PE ratio of 16.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a current ratio of 0.08, a quick ratio of 0.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32.

Aflac (NYSE:AFL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The financial services provider reported $2.16 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.69 by $0.47. Aflac had a net margin of 22.02% and a return on equity of 16.34%. The company had revenue of $2.95 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.30 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.84 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 40.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict that Aflac will post 7.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently issued reports on AFL. Evercore ISI increased their price objective on Aflac from $84.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Thursday, September 26th. Bank of America raised their price target on Aflac from $115.00 to $124.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 10th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of Aflac from $91.00 to $98.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday, August 19th. Barclays assumed coverage on Aflac in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. They issued an “underweight” rating and a $96.00 price target for the company. Finally, Piper Sandler upped their price objective on Aflac from $114.00 to $122.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $97.93.

About Aflac

Aflac Incorporated, through its subsidiaries, provides supplemental health and life insurance products. The company operates through Aflac Japan and Aflac U.S. segments. The Aflac Japan segment offers cancer, medical, nursing care, work leave, GIFT, and whole and term life insurance products, as well as WAYS and child endowment plans under saving type insurance products in Japan.