Southern Copper Co. (NYSE:SCCO) Plans $0.01 Quarterly Dividend

Southern Copper Co. (NYSE:SCCO) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, April 19th, Zacks reports. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 8th will be given a dividend of 0.01 per share by the basic materials company on Thursday, May 23rd. This represents a $0.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.03%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, May 7th.

Southern Copper has raised its dividend payment by an average of 38.7% per year over the last three years. Southern Copper has a payout ratio of 68.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Southern Copper to earn $4.77 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.20 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 67.1%.

Southern Copper Trading Up 2.1 %

NYSE SCCO opened at $115.41 on Monday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $103.14 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $87.24. Southern Copper has a twelve month low of $64.66 and a twelve month high of $121.00. The company has a quick ratio of 2.56, a current ratio of 3.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.82. The company has a market capitalization of $89.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 37.96, a PEG ratio of 3.25 and a beta of 1.27.

Southern Copper (NYSE:SCCO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 2nd. The basic materials company reported $0.58 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.73 by ($0.15). The company had revenue of $2.30 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.37 billion. Southern Copper had a return on equity of 30.44% and a net margin of 24.20%. Research analysts forecast that Southern Copper will post 4.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Southern Copper

In other Southern Copper news, Director Bonilla Luis Miguel Palomino sold 300 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $118.50, for a total transaction of $35,550.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 4,614 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $546,759. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In the last quarter, insiders sold 600 shares of company stock valued at $63,430. Corporate insiders own 0.08% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have weighed in on SCCO. CICC Research started coverage on shares of Southern Copper in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. They set an “outperform” rating for the company. Scotiabank increased their target price on shares of Southern Copper from $53.00 to $55.00 and gave the stock a “sector underperform” rating in a report on Thursday, April 18th. HSBC lowered Southern Copper from a “hold” rating to a “reduce” rating and set a $80.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Monday, April 22nd. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on Southern Copper from $123.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 30th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group raised Southern Copper from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $91.00 to $130.00 in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $90.50.

About Southern Copper

Southern Copper Corporation engages in mining, exploring, smelting, and refining copper and other minerals in Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, and Chile. The company is involved in the mining, milling, and flotation of copper ore to produce copper and molybdenum concentrates; smelting of copper concentrates to produce blister and anode copper; refining of anode copper to produce copper cathodes; production of molybdenum concentrate and sulfuric acid; production of refined silver, gold, and other materials; and mining and processing of zinc, copper, molybdenum, silver, gold, and lead.