United States Steel Co. Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.05 (NYSE:X)

United States Steel Co. (NYSE:X) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, October 31st, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 11th will be given a dividend of 0.05 per share by the basic materials company on Wednesday, December 11th. This represents a $0.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.51%.

United States Steel has raised its dividend payment by an average of 71.0% annually over the last three years. United States Steel has a dividend payout ratio of 7.2% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect United States Steel to earn $2.55 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.20 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 7.8%.

United States Steel Trading Down 1.7 %

NYSE:X traded down $0.68 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $38.85. 3,387,758 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,346,926. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a current ratio of 1.72 and a quick ratio of 1.14. The firm has a market cap of $8.74 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.45 and a beta of 1.87. United States Steel has a 52-week low of $26.92 and a 52-week high of $50.20. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $36.48 and a 200 day simple moving average of $37.71.

United States Steel (NYSE:X) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $0.84 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.72 by $0.12. United States Steel had a return on equity of 7.93% and a net margin of 3.40%. The company had revenue of $4.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.01 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.92 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down 17.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts predict that United States Steel will post 2.17 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on X shares. BNP Paribas upgraded United States Steel from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $40.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Friday, September 6th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on United States Steel from $47.00 to $41.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded United States Steel from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $40.00 to $42.00 in a research note on Monday, September 9th. Glj Research upgraded United States Steel from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $38.57 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday, September 9th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on United States Steel from $48.00 to $49.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $40.62.

About United States Steel

United States Steel Corporation produces and sells flat-rolled and tubular steel products primarily in North America and Europe. The company operates through North American Flat-Rolled (Flat-Rolled), Mini Mill, U. S. Steel Europe (USSE), and Tubular Products (Tubular) segments. The Flat-Rolled segment offers slabs, strip mill plates, sheets, and tin mill products, as well as iron ore and coke.