Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:CALM) Announces Dividend Increase – $1.49 Per Share

Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:CALM) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, January 8th,Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Wednesday, January 29th will be given a dividend of 1.489 per share by the basic materials company on Thursday, February 13th. This represents a $5.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.69%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, January 29th. This is a boost from Cal-Maine Foods’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.02.

Cal-Maine Foods has raised its dividend payment by an average of 340.3% per year over the last three years. Cal-Maine Foods has a payout ratio of 124.4% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Equities research analysts expect Cal-Maine Foods to earn $3.49 per share next year, which means the company may not be able to cover its $4.08 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 116.9%.

Cal-Maine Foods Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ CALM opened at $104.73 on Thursday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $98.56 and its two-hundred day moving average is $82.07. Cal-Maine Foods has a 52-week low of $53.38 and a 52-week high of $114.06. The company has a market cap of $5.14 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.00 and a beta of -0.11.

Cal-Maine Foods (NASDAQ:CALM) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, January 7th. The basic materials company reported $4.47 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.05 by $0.42. Cal-Maine Foods had a net margin of 16.09% and a return on equity of 24.25%. The firm had revenue of $954.70 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $751.50 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.35 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 82.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that Cal-Maine Foods will post 8.54 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have recently weighed in on CALM. Stephens began coverage on shares of Cal-Maine Foods in a research note on Thursday, October 3rd. They set an “equal weight” rating and a $82.00 price target for the company. StockNews.com cut Cal-Maine Foods from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday.

About Cal-Maine Foods

Cal-Maine Foods, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, produces, grades, packages, markets, and distributes shell eggs. The company offers specialty shell eggs, such as nutritionally enhanced, cage free, organic, free-range, pasture-raised, and brown eggs under the Egg-Land's Best, Land O' Lakes, Farmhouse Eggs, Sunups, Sunny Meadow, and 4Grain brand names.