AMETEK, Inc. (NYSE:AME) Declares Dividend Increase – $0.31 Per Share

AMETEK, Inc. (NYSE:AME) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, February 7th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be paid a dividend of 0.31 per share by the technology company on Monday, March 31st. This represents a $1.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.67%. This is an increase from AMETEK’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28.

AMETEK has increased its dividend by an average of 11.9% annually over the last three years. AMETEK has a dividend payout ratio of 14.3% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect AMETEK to earn $7.31 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.12 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 15.3%.

AMETEK Stock Up 0.9 %

AME stock opened at $184.54 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 1.39. AMETEK has a fifty-two week low of $149.03 and a fifty-two week high of $198.33. The firm has a market capitalization of $42.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.15, a PEG ratio of 2.67 and a beta of 1.16. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $184.29 and its 200 day moving average price is $176.65.

AMETEK (NYSE:AME) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 4th. The technology company reported $1.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.85 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $1.76 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.82 billion. AMETEK had a net margin of 19.27% and a return on equity of 16.88%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.68 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that AMETEK will post 6.8 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms recently weighed in on AME. Mizuho boosted their target price on AMETEK from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of AMETEK from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $210.00 target price for the company in a report on Thursday, January 16th. KeyCorp lifted their price target on shares of AMETEK from $205.00 to $215.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Truist Financial upped their price objective on shares of AMETEK from $221.00 to $222.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 16th. Finally, StockNews.com cut AMETEK from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, AMETEK currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $204.67.

Insider Buying and Selling at AMETEK

In other AMETEK news, insider Emanuela Speranza sold 6,747 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $195.90, for a total transaction of $1,321,737.30. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 30,460 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,967,114. The trade was a 18.13 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Tony J. Ciampitti sold 16,210 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $197.01, for a total value of $3,193,532.10. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 49,490 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,750,024.90. This represents a 24.67 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.61% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

AMETEK declared that its board has approved a share repurchase plan on Friday, February 7th that allows the company to repurchase $1.25 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the technology company to reacquire up to 2.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are often an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

AMETEK Company Profile

AMETEK, Inc manufactures and sells electronic instruments and electromechanical devices in the North America, Europe, Asia, and South America, and internationally. The company's EIG segment offers advanced instruments for the process, aerospace, power, and industrial markets; process and analytical instruments for the oil and gas, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, automation, and food and beverage industries; instruments to the laboratory equipment, ultra-precision manufacturing, medical, and test and measurement markets; power quality monitoring and c devices, uninterruptible power supplies, programmable power and electromagnetic compatibility test equipment, and sensors for gas turbines and dashboard instruments; heavy trucks, instrumentation, and controls for the food and beverage industries; and aircraft and engine sensors, power supplies, embedded computing, monitoring, fuel and fluid measurement, and data acquisition systems for aerospace and defense industry.