ArcBest Co. to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.12 (NASDAQ:ARCB)

ArcBest Co. (NASDAQ:ARCB) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, January 28th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a dividend of 0.12 per share by the transportation company on Tuesday, February 25th. This represents a $0.48 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.49%.

ArcBest has raised its dividend payment by an average of 14.5% per year over the last three years. ArcBest has a payout ratio of 4.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect ArcBest to earn $7.50 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.48 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 6.4%.

ArcBest Stock Performance

NASDAQ:ARCB opened at $98.31 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.04, a quick ratio of 1.04 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09. The company has a 50-day moving average of $102.10 and a 200-day moving average of $106.19. ArcBest has a twelve month low of $91.01 and a twelve month high of $153.60. The firm has a market cap of $2.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.83 and a beta of 1.53.

ArcBest (NASDAQ:ARCB) last issued its earnings results on Friday, November 1st. The transportation company reported $1.64 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.84 by ($0.20). The business had revenue of $1.06 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.07 billion. ArcBest had a return on equity of 14.27% and a net margin of 4.54%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 5.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.31 earnings per share. Analysts forecast that ArcBest will post 6.02 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on ARCB shares. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on ArcBest from $109.00 to $125.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 23rd. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price objective on shares of ArcBest from $140.00 to $130.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on shares of ArcBest from $175.00 to $170.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, November 4th. Wolfe Research lowered shares of ArcBest from an “outperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 9th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on shares of ArcBest from $130.00 to $117.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, November 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, ArcBest presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $125.00.

Insider Activity

In other news, SVP Michael E. Newcity sold 10,443 shares of ArcBest stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $120.60, for a total transaction of $1,259,425.80. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 5,051 shares in the company, valued at $609,150.60. The trade was a 67.40 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Craig E. Philip sold 3,900 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $109.91, for a total value of $428,649.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 23,250 shares in the company, valued at $2,555,407.50. This represents a 14.36 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.65% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

ArcBest Company Profile

ArcBest Corporation, an integrated logistics company, engages in the provision of ground, air, and ocean transportation solutions. It operates through two segments: Asset-Based and Asset-Light. The Asset-Based segment provides less-than-truckload (LTL) services, that transports general commodities, such as food, textiles, apparel, furniture, appliances, chemicals, non-bulk petroleum products, rubber, plastics, metal and metal products, wood, glass, automotive parts, machinery, and miscellaneous manufactured products.