Cathay General Bancorp Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.34 (NASDAQ:CATY)

Cathay General Bancorp (NASDAQ:CATY) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, November 15th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 27th will be given a dividend of 0.34 per share by the bank on Monday, December 9th. This represents a $1.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.53%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, November 27th.

Cathay General Bancorp has raised its dividend by an average of 3.1% annually over the last three years. Cathay General Bancorp has a payout ratio of 32.5% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Cathay General Bancorp to earn $4.16 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 32.7%.

Cathay General Bancorp Trading Up 2.0 %

Shares of Cathay General Bancorp stock opened at $53.85 on Tuesday. Cathay General Bancorp has a twelve month low of $33.88 and a twelve month high of $55.29. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $46.30 and its 200 day moving average price is $41.99. The company has a current ratio of 1.03, a quick ratio of 1.03 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.83 billion, a PE ratio of 13.56 and a beta of 1.10.

Cathay General Bancorp (NASDAQ:CATY) last released its earnings results on Monday, October 21st. The bank reported $0.94 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.95 by ($0.01). Cathay General Bancorp had a net margin of 20.57% and a return on equity of 11.30%. The firm had revenue of $359.86 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $182.70 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.13 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Cathay General Bancorp will post 3.99 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Cathay General Bancorp news, Vice Chairman Peter Wu sold 40,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $52.87, for a total value of $2,114,800.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 295,252 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $15,609,973.24. The trade was a 11.93 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, EVP Thomas M. Lo sold 900 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $47.00, for a total value of $42,300.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 3,359 shares in the company, valued at approximately $157,873. The trade was a 21.13 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 48,189 shares of company stock valued at $2,500,047. 4.76% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on CATY shares. Wedbush increased their target price on shares of Cathay General Bancorp from $50.00 to $52.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Truist Financial boosted their target price on Cathay General Bancorp from $45.00 to $47.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, September 20th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $44.00.

Cathay General Bancorp Company Profile

Cathay General Bancorp operates as the holding company for Cathay Bank that offers various commercial banking products and services to individuals, professionals, and small to medium-sized businesses in the United States. The company offers various deposit products, including passbook accounts, checking accounts, money market deposit accounts, certificates of deposit, individual retirement accounts, and public funds deposits.