Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE:DGX) Increases Dividend to $0.80 Per Share

Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE:DGX) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 30th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, April 7th will be paid a dividend of 0.80 per share by the medical research company on Monday, April 21st. This represents a $3.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.97%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, April 7th. This is a boost from Quest Diagnostics’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.75.

Quest Diagnostics has increased its dividend by an average of 6.9% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. Quest Diagnostics has a payout ratio of 28.5% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Quest Diagnostics to earn $9.71 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 30.9%.

Quest Diagnostics Trading Down 0.9 %

DGX opened at $162.77 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.83, a quick ratio of 1.17 and a current ratio of 1.25. Quest Diagnostics has a one year low of $123.04 and a one year high of $167.08. The company has a market cap of $18.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.88, a PEG ratio of 2.43 and a beta of 0.90. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $155.42 and its 200-day simple moving average is $153.50.

Quest Diagnostics (NYSE:DGX) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The medical research company reported $2.23 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.19 by $0.04. Quest Diagnostics had a net margin of 8.82% and a return on equity of 15.25%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Quest Diagnostics will post 8.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts recently issued reports on DGX shares. Leerink Partners raised Quest Diagnostics from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their target price for the company from $169.00 to $174.00 in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Truist Financial raised their target price on shares of Quest Diagnostics from $172.00 to $182.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday. Leerink Partnrs upgraded shares of Quest Diagnostics from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 6th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Quest Diagnostics from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Quest Diagnostics from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $145.00 to $172.00 in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Quest Diagnostics currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $174.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Quest Diagnostics news, CAO Michael J. Deppe sold 18,755 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.05, for a total value of $2,889,207.75. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 34,941 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,382,661.05. This trade represents a 34.93 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.79% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

About Quest Diagnostics

Quest Diagnostics Incorporated provides diagnostic testing and services in the United States and internationally. The company develops and delivers diagnostic information services, such as routine, non-routine and advanced clinical testing, anatomic pathology testing, and other diagnostic information services.