A. O. Smith Co. (NYSE:AOS) to Issue $0.34 Quarterly Dividend

A. O. Smith Co. (NYSE:AOS) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 16th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, January 31st will be paid a dividend of 0.34 per share by the industrial products company on Friday, February 14th. This represents a $1.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.95%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 31st.

A. O. Smith has increased its dividend payment by an average of 7.0% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 11 years. A. O. Smith has a dividend payout ratio of 31.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect A. O. Smith to earn $4.02 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.36 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 33.8%.

A. O. Smith Price Performance

Shares of AOS opened at $69.77 on Wednesday. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $71.01 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $77.66. The stock has a market cap of $10.12 billion, a PE ratio of 18.36, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.47 and a beta of 1.18. A. O. Smith has a fifty-two week low of $67.17 and a fifty-two week high of $92.44. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a current ratio of 1.67.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on AOS. Oppenheimer upgraded shares of A. O. Smith from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $88.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c)” rating on shares of A. O. Smith in a research report on Saturday, January 18th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on A. O. Smith from $91.00 to $90.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. DA Davidson cut shares of A. O. Smith from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $80.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Finally, StockNews.com lowered A. O. Smith from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 15th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $83.14.

A. O. Smith Company Profile

A. O. Smith Corporation manufactures and markets residential and commercial gas and electric water heaters, boilers, heat pumps, tanks, and water treatment products in North America, China, Europe, and India. The company offers water heaters for residences, restaurants, hotels, office buildings, laundries, car washes, and small businesses; boilers for hospitals, schools, hotels, and other large commercial buildings, as well as homes, apartments, and condominiums; and water treatment products comprising point-of-entry water softeners, well water solutions, and whole-home water filtration products, and point-of-use carbon and reverse osmosis products for residences, restaurants, hotels, and offices.