Western Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE:WES) Declares $0.88 Quarterly Dividend

Western Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE:WES) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, January 24th,NASDAQ Dividends reports. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.875 per share by the pipeline company on Friday, February 14th. This represents a $3.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 8.26%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, February 3rd.

Western Midstream Partners has raised its dividend by an average of 36.2% per year over the last three years. Western Midstream Partners has a dividend payout ratio of 92.8% indicating that its dividend is currently covered by earnings, but may not be in the future if the company’s earnings fall. Equities analysts expect Western Midstream Partners to earn $3.48 per share next year, which means the company may not be able to cover its $3.50 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 100.6%.

Western Midstream Partners Stock Performance

NYSE WES opened at $42.39 on Friday. Western Midstream Partners has a twelve month low of $27.84 and a twelve month high of $43.33. The company has a quick ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.05. The stock has a market cap of $16.13 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.81, a PEG ratio of 1.41 and a beta of 2.90. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $39.67 and its 200 day simple moving average is $39.13.

Western Midstream Partners (NYSE:WES) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 6th. The pipeline company reported $0.74 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.83 by ($0.09). The company had revenue of $883.36 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $924.83 million. Western Midstream Partners had a net margin of 42.99% and a return on equity of 46.02%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.70 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Western Midstream Partners will post 4.03 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently commented on WES. UBS Group reduced their target price on shares of Western Midstream Partners from $40.00 to $37.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, November 15th. US Capital Advisors upgraded shares of Western Midstream Partners from a “hold” rating to a “moderate buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 26th. Morgan Stanley lowered shares of Western Midstream Partners from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $42.00 to $40.00 in a report on Friday, October 25th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and issued a $41.00 target price on shares of Western Midstream Partners in a report on Monday, December 9th. Finally, StockNews.com cut Western Midstream Partners from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 28th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $37.88.

About Western Midstream Partners

Western Midstream Partners, LP, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a midstream energy company primarily in the United States. It is involved in gathering, compressing, treating, processing, and transporting natural gas; gathering, stabilizing, and transporting condensate, natural gas liquids (NGLs), and crude oil; and gathering and disposing produced water.