Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:JEF) Announces Dividend Increase – $0.40 Per Share

Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:JEF) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, January 8th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 14th will be paid a dividend of 0.40 per share by the financial services provider on Thursday, February 27th. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.23%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 14th. This is an increase from Jefferies Financial Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.35.

Jefferies Financial Group has raised its dividend payment by an average of 13.0% per year over the last three years. Jefferies Financial Group has a dividend payout ratio of 27.1% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Jefferies Financial Group to earn $6.20 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 25.8%.

Jefferies Financial Group Stock Down 1.9 %

Shares of NYSE JEF opened at $71.90 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $14.82 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.13 and a beta of 1.34. The company has a current ratio of 1.07, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.57. Jefferies Financial Group has a 12-month low of $39.86 and a 12-month high of $82.68. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $77.09 and its 200-day simple moving average is $68.41.

Jefferies Financial Group (NYSE:JEF) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The financial services provider reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.97 by ($0.06). The company had revenue of $1.96 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.83 billion. Jefferies Financial Group had a net margin of 10.57% and a return on equity of 7.92%. The firm’s revenue was up 63.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.30 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts predict that Jefferies Financial Group will post 4.55 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

JEF has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Oppenheimer dropped their target price on Jefferies Financial Group from $82.00 to $81.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Morgan Stanley raised Jefferies Financial Group from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $67.00 to $97.00 in a report on Monday, December 9th.

Jefferies Financial Group Company Profile

Jefferies Financial Group Inc operates as an investment banking and capital markets firm in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific. The company operates in two segments, Investment Banking and Capital Markets, and Asset Management. It provides investment banking, advisory services with respect to mergers or acquisitions, debt financing, restructurings or recapitalizations, and private capital advisory transactions; underwriting and placement services related to corporate debt, municipal bonds, mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities, equity and equity-linked securities, and loan syndication services; and corporate lending services.