Blue Trust Inc. Sells 4,225 Shares of Costamare Inc. $CMRE

Blue Trust Inc. lessened its stake in Costamare Inc. (NYSE:CMRE) by 39.2% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 6,553 shares of the shipping company’s stock after selling 4,225 shares during the period. Blue Trust Inc.’s holdings in Costamare were worth $60,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in CMRE. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in shares of Costamare in the 1st quarter worth $99,482,000. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC bought a new position in Costamare in the second quarter valued at about $26,767,000. Millennium Management LLC purchased a new position in Costamare in the first quarter worth about $6,075,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its position in Costamare by 42.2% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 479,822 shares of the shipping company’s stock worth $4,721,000 after purchasing an additional 142,372 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Jane Street Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Costamare by 156.9% during the 1st quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 200,984 shares of the shipping company’s stock valued at $1,978,000 after purchasing an additional 122,737 shares during the period. 58.08% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CMRE has been the topic of a number of research reports. Zacks Research raised shares of Costamare from a “strong sell” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, September 22nd. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Costamare in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $13.00.

Costamare Stock Up 1.0%

Shares of CMRE stock opened at $11.59 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65, a current ratio of 1.68 and a quick ratio of 1.64. Costamare Inc. has a one year low of $6.63 and a one year high of $14.85. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $11.77 and its 200-day moving average price is $10.04. The company has a market capitalization of $1.39 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.91 and a beta of 1.38.

Costamare (NYSE:CMRE) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 31st. The shipping company reported $0.77 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.48 by $0.29. The business had revenue of $211.20 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $209.72 million. Costamare had a return on equity of 13.67% and a net margin of 17.10%.During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.76 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Costamare Inc. will post 2.52 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Costamare Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, November 6th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, October 21st will be issued a dividend of $0.115 per share. This represents a $0.46 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, October 21st. Costamare’s dividend payout ratio is 19.49%.

About Costamare