Argan, Inc. (NYSE:AGX) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.38

Argan, Inc. (NYSE:AGX) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, December 12th,Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Thursday, January 23rd will be given a dividend of 0.375 per share by the construction company on Friday, January 31st. This represents a $1.50 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.84%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 23rd.

Argan has raised its dividend payment by an average of 19.4% per year over the last three years. Argan has a payout ratio of 19.7% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings.

Argan Stock Up 1.3 %

AGX stock opened at $177.64 on Tuesday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $150.71 and a 200 day moving average price of $114.46. The stock has a market cap of $2.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.16 and a beta of 0.56. Argan has a fifty-two week low of $43.44 and a fifty-two week high of $181.37.

Argan (NYSE:AGX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 5th. The construction company reported $2.00 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.26 by $0.74. Argan had a return on equity of 21.66% and a net margin of 8.20%. The company had revenue of $257.00 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $225.60 million. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 56.9% on a year-over-year basis.

Insider Buying and Selling at Argan

In other news, CFO Richard H. Deily sold 2,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.00, for a total transaction of $300,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 9,367 shares in the company, valued at $1,405,050. This represents a 17.59 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO David Hibbert Watson sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $146.05, for a total transaction of $1,460,500.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 51,291 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,491,050.55. This trade represents a 16.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 20,185 shares of company stock worth $3,105,359. Insiders own 11.85% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on AGX shares. CJS Securities restated a “market perform” rating and set a $150.00 price target on shares of Argan in a research note on Friday, December 6th. StockNews.com cut shares of Argan from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Lake Street Capital downgraded Argan from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $85.00 to $150.00 in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd.

Argan Company Profile

Argan, Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, maintenance, project development, and technical consulting services to the power generation market. The company operates through Power Services, Industrial Services, and Telecom Services segments. The Power Services segment offers engineering, procurement, and construction, as well as designing, building, and commissioning of large-scale energy projects to the owners of alternative energy facilities, such as biomass plants, wind farms, and solar fields; and design, construction, project management, start-up, and operation services for projects with approximately 18 gigawatts of power-generating capacity.