Royal Gold (NASDAQ:RGLD) Releases Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.17 EPS

Royal Gold (NASDAQ:RGLD) (TSE:RGL) announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday. The basic materials company reported $1.63 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.46 by $0.17, Zacks reports. Royal Gold had a net margin of 42.93% and a return on equity of 10.18%.

Royal Gold Price Performance

NASDAQ:RGLD opened at $147.19 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $9.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.76, a PEG ratio of 0.87 and a beta of 0.90. Royal Gold has a 1 year low of $100.55 and a 1 year high of $155.10. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $139.37 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $141.00.

Royal Gold Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 17th. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.45 per share. This represents a $1.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.22%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. This is a boost from Royal Gold’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. Royal Gold’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 41.28%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

RGLD has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group raised Royal Gold from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $154.00 to $178.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. Raymond James lifted their target price on Royal Gold from $184.00 to $186.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, November 11th. Finally, TD Securities boosted their price target on Royal Gold from $181.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 7th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $168.86.

Insider Activity at Royal Gold

In other Royal Gold news, SVP Daniel Breeze sold 549 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $150.00, for a total transaction of $82,350.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 16,293 shares in the company, valued at $2,443,950. This trade represents a 3.26 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 0.52% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

About Royal Gold

Royal Gold, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, acquires and manages precious metal streams, royalties, and related interests. The company engages in acquiring stream and royalty interests or to finance projects that are in production, development, or in the exploration stage in exchange for stream or royalty interests, which primarily consists of gold, silver, copper, nickel, zinc, lead, and other metals.