Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.40 on March 1st

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, January 28th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, January 7th will be given a dividend of 0.40 per share by the financial services provider on Saturday, March 1st. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.01%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 7th.

Wells Fargo & Company has increased its dividend payment by an average of 35.7% annually over the last three years. Wells Fargo & Company has a payout ratio of 23.2% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Wells Fargo & Company to earn $6.79 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 23.6%.

Wells Fargo & Company Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:WFC opened at $79.54 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.07, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a current ratio of 0.86. The firm has a market cap of $264.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.19 and a beta of 1.18. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $73.66 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $65.06. Wells Fargo & Company has a fifty-two week low of $47.45 and a fifty-two week high of $79.85.

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 15th. The financial services provider reported $1.43 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.34 by $0.09. Wells Fargo & Company had a net margin of 15.73% and a return on equity of 12.38%. The company had revenue of $20.38 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $20.58 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.86 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down .5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts expect that Wells Fargo & Company will post 5.84 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have commented on WFC shares. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their target price on shares of Wells Fargo & Company from $72.00 to $82.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Barclays boosted their price objective on Wells Fargo & Company from $90.00 to $92.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 16th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their price objective on shares of Wells Fargo & Company from $81.00 to $86.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 16th. Compass Point upped their target price on shares of Wells Fargo & Company from $60.00 to $83.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 10th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded Wells Fargo & Company from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $65.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Tuesday, October 8th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $73.39.

Wells Fargo & Company Company Profile

Wells Fargo & Co is a diversified and community-based financial services company, which engages in the provision of banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance products and services. It operates through the following segments: Consumer Banking and Lending, Commercial Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking, and Wealth and Investment Management.