ONEOK, Inc. Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.99 (NYSE:OKE)

ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, October 16th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 1st will be paid a dividend of 0.99 per share by the utilities provider on Thursday, November 14th. This represents a $3.96 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.14%.

ONEOK has increased its dividend payment by an average of 0.7% annually over the last three years. ONEOK has a dividend payout ratio of 65.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect ONEOK to earn $5.64 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.96 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 70.2%.

ONEOK Price Performance

OKE stock opened at $95.65 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $55.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.68 and a beta of 1.67. The company has a quick ratio of 0.41, a current ratio of 0.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.22. ONEOK has a 52-week low of $63.33 and a 52-week high of $98.01. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $91.32 and its 200-day simple moving average is $84.44.

ONEOK (NYSE:OKE) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, August 5th. The utilities provider reported $1.33 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.21 by $0.12. The firm had revenue of $4.89 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.52 billion. ONEOK had a return on equity of 15.54% and a net margin of 13.41%. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.04 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that ONEOK will post 5.09 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently issued reports on OKE. Mizuho boosted their target price on shares of ONEOK from $81.00 to $85.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, July 26th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on shares of ONEOK from $91.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, August 30th. Scotiabank increased their target price on ONEOK from $88.00 to $102.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, August 30th. Morgan Stanley upgraded ONEOK from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $103.00 to $111.00 in a report on Monday, September 16th. Finally, Citigroup raised their price objective on ONEOK from $85.00 to $102.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, ONEOK presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $93.08.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director Pattye L. Moore sold 3,379 shares of ONEOK stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $92.01, for a total value of $310,901.79. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.20% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

About ONEOK

ONEOK, Inc engages in gathering, processing, fractionation, storage, transportation, and marketing of natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) in the United States. It operates through four segments: Natural Gas Gathering and Processing, Natural Gas Liquids, Natural Gas Pipelines, and Refined Products and Crude.