Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (NYSE:ADM) Announces Dividend Increase – $0.51 Per Share

Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (NYSE:ADM) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, February 4th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 18th will be given a dividend of 0.51 per share on Tuesday, March 11th. This represents a $2.04 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.39%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 18th. This is a boost from Archer-Daniels-Midland’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50.

Archer-Daniels-Midland has raised its dividend by an average of 10.6% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 23 years. Archer-Daniels-Midland has a payout ratio of 40.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Archer-Daniels-Midland to earn $4.60 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 43.5%.

Archer-Daniels-Midland Stock Performance

NYSE ADM opened at $46.44 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a current ratio of 1.40 and a quick ratio of 0.84. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.27 and a beta of 0.72. The company’s fifty day moving average is $51.24 and its two-hundred day moving average is $55.69. Archer-Daniels-Midland has a 52-week low of $45.14 and a 52-week high of $66.08.

Archer-Daniels-Midland (NYSE:ADM) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The company reported $1.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.07 by $0.07. The company had revenue of $21.50 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $22.77 billion. Archer-Daniels-Midland had a net margin of 2.07% and a return on equity of 10.96%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 6.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.36 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Archer-Daniels-Midland will post 4.72 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Bank of America downgraded shares of Archer-Daniels-Midland from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $63.00 to $54.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of Archer-Daniels-Midland from $51.00 to $55.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 4th. BMO Capital Markets cut their price target on shares of Archer-Daniels-Midland from $51.00 to $49.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday. Barclays cut their price target on shares of Archer-Daniels-Midland from $56.00 to $50.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their price target on shares of Archer-Daniels-Midland from $57.00 to $52.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, November 12th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and seven have issued a hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Archer-Daniels-Midland has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $56.33.

Archer-Daniels-Midland declared that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Wednesday, December 11th that allows the company to buyback 100,000,000 shares. This buyback authorization allows the company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are often a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

About Archer-Daniels-Midland

Archer-Daniels-Midland Company engages in the procurement, transportation, storage, processing, and merchandising of agricultural commodities, ingredients, flavors, and solutions in the United States, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates in three segments: Ag Services and Oilseeds, Carbohydrate Solutions, and Nutrition.