Heartland Express, Inc. (HTLD) To Go Ex-Dividend on June 25th

Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, June 14th, Zacks reports. Investors of record on Tuesday, June 25th will be paid a dividend of 0.02 per share by the transportation company on Friday, July 5th. This represents a $0.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.67%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, June 25th.

Heartland Express has a dividend payout ratio of 16.3% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Heartland Express to earn $0.56 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.08 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 14.3%.

Heartland Express Trading Up 0.8 %

Shares of HTLD stock opened at $11.86 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30, a quick ratio of 1.26 and a current ratio of 1.26. The stock has a market capitalization of $937.53 million, a P/E ratio of -69.76 and a beta of 0.67. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $11.15 and a 200 day moving average price of $12.21. Heartland Express has a fifty-two week low of $9.63 and a fifty-two week high of $17.08.

Heartland Express (NASDAQ:HTLD) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The transportation company reported ($0.19) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.12) by ($0.07). Heartland Express had a negative return on equity of 1.50% and a negative net margin of 1.13%. The firm had revenue of $270.30 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $263.92 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.16 EPS. The company’s revenue was down 18.3% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts predict that Heartland Express will post -0.13 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Heartland Express

In other Heartland Express news, major shareholder Ann S. Gerdin Revocable Trust purchased 8,089 shares of Heartland Express stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 3rd. The stock was purchased at an average price of $10.74 per share, for a total transaction of $86,875.86. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 849,078 shares in the company, valued at $9,119,097.72. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other Heartland Express news, major shareholder Ann S. Gerdin Revocable Trust purchased 8,089 shares of Heartland Express stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 3rd. The stock was purchased at an average price of $10.74 per share, for a total transaction of $86,875.86. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 849,078 shares in the company, valued at $9,119,097.72. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director James G. Pratt acquired 9,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 12th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $11.96 per share, for a total transaction of $107,640.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 23,429 shares in the company, valued at approximately $280,210.84. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders purchased 405,490 shares of company stock worth $4,237,451. 39.60% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have commented on HTLD. StockNews.com cut shares of Heartland Express from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 24th. Barclays reduced their price objective on shares of Heartland Express from $11.00 to $10.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, April 30th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on shares of Heartland Express from $13.00 to $12.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and three have issued a hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Heartland Express presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $13.25.

About Heartland Express

Heartland Express, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a short-to-medium, and long-haul truckload carrier in the United States and Canada. It primarily provides nationwide asset-based dry van truckload service for shippers; cross-border freight and other transportation services; and temperature-controlled truckload services.