Royal Gold, Inc. (NASDAQ:RGLD) Announces Dividend Increase – $0.45 Per Share

Royal Gold, Inc. (NASDAQ:RGLD) (TSE:RGL) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, November 19th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a dividend of 0.45 per share by the basic materials company on Friday, January 17th. This represents a $1.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.22%. This is a boost from Royal Gold’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40.

Royal Gold has increased its dividend by an average of 10.2% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 24 years. Royal Gold has a dividend payout ratio of 25.0% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Royal Gold to earn $6.35 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 25.2%.

Royal Gold Stock Up 1.1 %

Royal Gold stock traded up $1.60 during midday trading on Tuesday, reaching $147.89. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 490,772 shares, compared to its average volume of 369,857. The company has a market cap of $9.72 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.71, a P/E/G ratio of 1.12 and a beta of 0.90. Royal Gold has a fifty-two week low of $100.55 and a fifty-two week high of $155.10. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $144.03 and a 200-day simple moving average of $135.72.

Royal Gold (NASDAQ:RGLD) (TSE:RGL) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 6th. The basic materials company reported $1.47 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.34 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $193.84 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $184.12 million. Royal Gold had a net margin of 42.93% and a return on equity of 10.18%. The company’s revenue was up 39.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.76 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Royal Gold will post 5.13 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Royal Gold

In related news, Director William M. Hayes sold 1,984 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $147.05, for a total transaction of $291,747.20. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 9,268 shares in the company, valued at $1,362,859.40. This trade represents a 17.63 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Paul Libner sold 1,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $142.53, for a total value of $213,795.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 18,657 shares in the company, valued at $2,659,182.21. The trade was a 7.44 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 9,339 shares of company stock valued at $1,329,902. 0.52% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages recently weighed in on RGLD. Raymond James boosted their price objective on shares of Royal Gold from $184.00 to $186.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, November 11th. StockNews.com raised shares of Royal Gold from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, September 19th. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price objective on shares of Royal Gold from $141.00 to $154.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, October 4th. TD Securities lifted their price objective on shares of Royal Gold from $181.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. Finally, Scotiabank raised their target price on shares of Royal Gold from $148.00 to $157.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Monday, August 19th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Royal Gold presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $165.43.

About Royal Gold

Royal Gold, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, acquires and manages precious metal streams, royalties, and related interests. The company engages in acquiring stream and royalty interests or to finance projects that are in production, development, or in the exploration stage in exchange for stream or royalty interests, which primarily consists of gold, silver, copper, nickel, zinc, lead, and other metals.