St. Joe (NYSE:JOE) Sets New 52-Week High – Here’s Why

St. Joe Company (The) (NYSE:JOE) shares hit a new 52-week high during trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $59.57 and last traded at $58.8340, with a volume of 239098 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $58.73.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have commented on JOE shares. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of St. Joe in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. Wall Street Zen raised St. Joe from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Hold rating, According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold”.

St. Joe Stock Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 1.45. The company has a market cap of $3.40 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.69 and a beta of 1.31. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $50.40 and its 200-day moving average price is $48.45.

St. Joe (NYSE:JOE) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 29th. The financial services provider reported $0.67 earnings per share for the quarter. St. Joe had a return on equity of 14.10% and a net margin of 21.40%.The business had revenue of $161.10 million for the quarter.

St. Joe Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 12th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 13th will be issued a dividend of $0.16 per share. This is a positive change from St. Joe’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.14. This represents a $0.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 13th. St. Joe’s dividend payout ratio is presently 35.56%.

Insider Transactions at St. Joe

In related news, major shareholder Bruce R. Berkowitz sold 104,100 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, September 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $51.08, for a total transaction of $5,317,428.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 16,324,624 shares in the company, valued at approximately $833,861,793.92. This represents a 0.63% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders sold a total of 616,000 shares of company stock worth $31,340,145 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.32% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of St. Joe by 2.8% during the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 193,064 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $9,553,000 after acquiring an additional 5,300 shares during the period. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans boosted its stake in St. Joe by 3.6% in the 3rd quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 28,826 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $1,426,000 after purchasing an additional 999 shares during the period. AlphaQuest LLC boosted its stake in St. Joe by 61.3% in the 3rd quarter. AlphaQuest LLC now owns 18,507 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $916,000 after purchasing an additional 7,036 shares during the period. Blackhawk Capital Partners LLC bought a new position in St. Joe in the 3rd quarter valued at $1,535,000. Finally, Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH bought a new position in St. Joe in the 3rd quarter valued at $380,000. Institutional investors own 86.67% of the company’s stock.

St. Joe Company Profile

The St. Joe Company, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a real estate development, asset management, and operating company in Northwest Florida. It operates through three segments: Residential, Hospitality, and Commercial. The Residential segment engages in the development of communities into homesites for sale to homebuilders and on a limited basis to retail customers.