Seagate Technology Holdings plc (STX) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.72 on April 2nd

Seagate Technology Holdings plc (NASDAQ:STX) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, January 22nd,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, March 19th will be given a dividend of 0.72 per share by the data storage provider on Wednesday, April 2nd. This represents a $2.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.66%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 19th.

Seagate Technology has increased its dividend by an average of 1.3% annually over the last three years. Seagate Technology has a dividend payout ratio of 30.6% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Seagate Technology to earn $10.63 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.88 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 27.1%.

Seagate Technology Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ STX opened at $108.42 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $94.55 and its 200 day simple moving average is $100.33. The stock has a market cap of $22.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.82 and a beta of 1.06. Seagate Technology has a fifty-two week low of $82.31 and a fifty-two week high of $115.32.

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The data storage provider reported $1.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.30 by $0.28. The company had revenue of $2.17 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.13 billion. Seagate Technology had a negative return on equity of 63.48% and a net margin of 14.67%. Seagate Technology’s quarterly revenue was up 49.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.34) earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Seagate Technology will post 6.92 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other Seagate Technology news, CEO William D. Mosley sold 20,000 shares of Seagate Technology stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.83, for a total transaction of $2,056,600.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 622,497 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $64,011,366.51. The trade was a 3.11 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Yolanda Lee Conyers sold 750 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $101.82, for a total value of $76,365.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 6,555 shares in the company, valued at approximately $667,430.10. This represents a 10.27 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 50,073 shares of company stock worth $5,106,149 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.81% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have recently commented on the stock. Citigroup increased their target price on shares of Seagate Technology from $120.00 to $125.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. Susquehanna increased their price objective on shares of Seagate Technology from $65.00 to $68.00 and gave the company a “negative” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Benchmark upgraded Seagate Technology from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $120.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. Rosenblatt Securities increased their price target on Seagate Technology from $140.00 to $150.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Barclays raised their target price on Seagate Technology from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $122.56.

About Seagate Technology

Seagate Technology Holdings plc provides data storage technology and solutions in Singapore, the United States, the Netherlands, and internationally. It provides mass capacity storage products, including enterprise nearline hard disk drives (HDDs), enterprise nearline solid state drives (SSDs), enterprise nearline systems, video and image HDDs, and network-attached storage drives.