EQT Co. (NYSE:EQT) Announces $0.16 Quarterly Dividend

EQT Co. (NYSE:EQT) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, April 17th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 8th will be paid a dividend of 0.1575 per share by the oil and gas producer on Saturday, June 1st. This represents a $0.63 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.75%.

EQT has increased its dividend payment by an average of 172.6% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 2 consecutive years. EQT has a payout ratio of 15.5% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect EQT to earn $4.53 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.63 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 13.9%.

EQT Stock Down 0.4 %

EQT stock traded down $0.16 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $36.04. The stock had a trading volume of 5,246,030 shares, compared to its average volume of 6,433,541. The company has a market capitalization of $15.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.54 and a beta of 1.12. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $35.81 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $38.11. EQT has a one year low of $30.84 and a one year high of $45.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 0.99 and a quick ratio of 0.99.

EQT (NYSE:EQT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 13th. The oil and gas producer reported $0.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.47 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $1.55 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.58 billion. EQT had a net margin of 25.12% and a return on equity of 7.12%. EQT’s revenue was up 17.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.42 EPS. On average, analysts expect that EQT will post 1.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of EQT

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. FIL Ltd raised its holdings in EQT by 0.4% during the 4th quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 1,833,524 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock valued at $70,884,000 after buying an additional 7,386 shares during the period. Hobbs Group Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in EQT in the fourth quarter worth $114,000. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio increased its stake in EQT by 2.8% in the fourth quarter. Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio now owns 157,906 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $6,105,000 after purchasing an additional 4,264 shares during the period. Chartwell Investment Partners LLC increased its stake in EQT by 2.4% in the fourth quarter. Chartwell Investment Partners LLC now owns 72,134 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $2,788,000 after purchasing an additional 1,685 shares during the period. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its stake in EQT by 52.8% in the fourth quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 2,265,260 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $87,575,000 after purchasing an additional 782,619 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.81% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on EQT shares. Wells Fargo & Company lowered EQT from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $48.00 to $37.00 in a research report on Wednesday. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price target on shares of EQT from $42.00 to $43.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, April 5th. StockNews.com raised shares of EQT to a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 12th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of EQT from an “underperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and upped their price target for the company from $27.00 to $34.00 in a research report on Wednesday, April 10th. Finally, Scotiabank upgraded EQT from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $40.00 to $52.00 in a research note on Thursday, April 11th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, EQT has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $43.13.

EQT Company Profile

EQT Corporation operates as a natural gas production company in the United States. The company sells natural gas and natural gas liquids to marketers, utilities, and industrial customers through pipelines located in the Appalachian Basin. It also offers marketing services and contractual pipeline capacity management services.