Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) Plans $0.02 Quarterly Dividend

Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, March 14th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 25th will be paid a dividend of 0.02 per share by the transportation company on Friday, April 4th. This represents a $0.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.85%.

Heartland Express has a payout ratio of 13.3% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Heartland Express to earn $0.77 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.08 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 10.4%.

Heartland Express Stock Up 2.4 %

HTLD traded up $0.23 during trading on Friday, reaching $9.43. 587,246 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 384,685. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a quick ratio of 1.17 and a current ratio of 1.08. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $10.90 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $11.52. Heartland Express has a twelve month low of $9.11 and a twelve month high of $13.67. The stock has a market cap of $740.33 million, a P/E ratio of -25.46 and a beta of 0.80.

Heartland Express (NASDAQ:HTLD) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 28th. The transportation company reported ($0.02) earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.04) by $0.02. Heartland Express had a negative net margin of 2.84% and a negative return on equity of 3.57%. Equities analysts expect that Heartland Express will post 0.17 EPS for the current year.

About Heartland Express

Heartland Express, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a short-to-medium, and long-haul truckload carrier in the United States and Canada. It primarily provides nationwide asset-based dry van truckload service for shippers; cross-border freight and other transportation services; and temperature-controlled truckload services.