Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) Increases Dividend to $1.62 Per Share

Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, December 3rd,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be paid a dividend of 1.62 per share by the industrial products company on Monday, February 10th. This represents a $6.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.41%. This is an increase from Deere & Company’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.47.

Deere & Company has increased its dividend payment by an average of 20.5% annually over the last three years. Deere & Company has a payout ratio of 30.1% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Deere & Company to earn $22.23 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $5.88 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 26.5%.

Deere & Company Stock Down 0.6 %

NYSE DE traded down $2.77 on Tuesday, reaching $460.18. The stock had a trading volume of 752,341 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,447,141. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $413.25 and a 200 day moving average price of $388.13. The company has a current ratio of 2.09, a quick ratio of 1.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.89. Deere & Company has a 1 year low of $340.20 and a 1 year high of $469.39. The company has a market capitalization of $125.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.07, a P/E/G ratio of 1.99 and a beta of 0.96.

Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 21st. The industrial products company reported $4.55 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.90 by $0.65. The company had revenue of $9.28 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.20 billion. Deere & Company had a return on equity of 31.32% and a net margin of 13.73%. The firm’s revenue was down 32.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $8.26 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Deere & Company will post 19.52 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have issued reports on DE. Citigroup raised their price objective on Deere & Company from $395.00 to $420.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 9th. HSBC cut Deere & Company from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, August 19th. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on Deere & Company from $371.00 to $378.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a report on Monday, August 19th. Hsbc Global Res downgraded shares of Deere & Company from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, August 19th. Finally, Truist Financial lifted their price target on shares of Deere & Company from $496.00 to $538.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $436.41.

About Deere & Company

Deere & Company engages in the manufacture and distribution of various equipment worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Production and Precision Agriculture, Small Agriculture and Turf, Construction and Forestry, and Financial Services. The Production and Precision Agriculture segment provides large and medium tractors, combines, cotton pickers and strippers, sugarcane harvesters and loaders, harvesting front-end equipment, pull-behind scrapers, and tillage and seeding equipment, as well as application equipment, including sprayers and nutrient management, and soil preparation machinery for grain growers.