American Express (NYSE:AXP) Announces Dividend Increase – $0.82 Per Share

American Express (NYSE:AXP) declared a quarterly dividend on Monday, March 3rd, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be paid a dividend of 0.82 per share by the payment services company on Friday, May 9th. This represents a $3.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.11%. This is an increase from American Express’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.70.

American Express has increased its dividend by an average of 17.6% per year over the last three years. American Express has a payout ratio of 16.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect American Express to earn $17.60 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 15.9%.

American Express Stock Down 1.9 %

Shares of American Express stock traded down $5.84 during trading on Monday, reaching $295.12. The company had a trading volume of 2,342,398 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,473,761. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.64, a quick ratio of 1.57 and a current ratio of 1.58. American Express has a fifty-two week low of $214.51 and a fifty-two week high of $326.27. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $307.44 and its 200-day moving average is $287.07. The company has a market cap of $207.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.41 and a beta of 1.24.

American Express (NYSE:AXP) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, January 24th. The payment services company reported $3.04 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.00 by $0.04. American Express had a return on equity of 32.65% and a net margin of 15.36%. On average, analysts anticipate that American Express will post 15.33 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently issued reports on AXP. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on American Express from $301.00 to $307.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of American Express in a research report on Monday, January 27th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on shares of American Express from $330.00 to $350.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, January 27th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their target price on shares of American Express from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, January 27th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered American Express from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, January 27th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have issued a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, American Express has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $296.38.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other American Express news, insider Raymond Joabar sold 15,179 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $313.94, for a total transaction of $4,765,295.26. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 23,866 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,492,492.04. The trade was a 38.88 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Ravikumar Radhakrishnan sold 9,485 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $319.17, for a total transaction of $3,027,327.45. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 13,500 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,308,795. This trade represents a 41.27 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.12% of the company’s stock.

American Express Company Profile

American Express Company, together with its subsidiaries, operates as integrated payments company in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the Asia Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, Canada, the Caribbean, and Internationally. It operates through four segments: U.S. Consumer Services, Commercial Services, International Card Services, and Global Merchant and Network Services.