Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $1.62

Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, December 3rd,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be given a dividend of 1.62 per share by the industrial products company on Monday, February 10th. This represents a $6.48 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.41%. This is a boost from Deere & Company’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.47.

Deere & Company has increased its dividend by an average of 20.5% annually over the last three years. Deere & Company has a payout ratio of 30.1% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Deere & Company to earn $22.23 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $5.88 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 26.5%.

Deere & Company Price Performance

Shares of DE traded down $2.77 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $460.18. 752,341 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,447,141. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $413.25 and a 200 day moving average price of $388.13. The company has a market cap of $125.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.07, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.99 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 2.09, a quick ratio of 1.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.89. Deere & Company has a 1 year low of $340.20 and a 1 year high of $469.39.

Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The industrial products company reported $4.55 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.90 by $0.65. The business had revenue of $9.28 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.20 billion. Deere & Company had a net margin of 13.73% and a return on equity of 31.32%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 32.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $8.26 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Deere & Company will post 19.52 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have weighed in on DE. Bank of America boosted their price target on shares of Deere & Company from $400.00 to $410.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, August 16th. Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on shares of Deere & Company from $448.00 to $477.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of Deere & Company from $400.00 to $475.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Citigroup boosted their price target on shares of Deere & Company from $395.00 to $420.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Finally, HSBC cut shares of Deere & Company from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, August 19th. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Deere & Company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $436.41.

Deere & Company Company Profile

Deere & Company engages in the manufacture and distribution of various equipment worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Production and Precision Agriculture, Small Agriculture and Turf, Construction and Forestry, and Financial Services. The Production and Precision Agriculture segment provides large and medium tractors, combines, cotton pickers and strippers, sugarcane harvesters and loaders, harvesting front-end equipment, pull-behind scrapers, and tillage and seeding equipment, as well as application equipment, including sprayers and nutrient management, and soil preparation machinery for grain growers.