Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $2.38

Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, December 10th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 14th will be paid a dividend of 2.38 per share by the medical research company on Friday, March 7th. This represents a $9.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.47%. This is an increase from Amgen’s previous quarterly dividend of $2.25.

Amgen has raised its dividend payment by an average of 10.0% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 13 years. Amgen has a dividend payout ratio of 43.5% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Amgen to earn $20.34 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $9.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 44.2%.

Amgen Price Performance

NASDAQ AMGN traded down $1.15 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $274.60. 511,380 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,598,357. Amgen has a 1-year low of $257.80 and a 1-year high of $346.85. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $305.69 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $315.66. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 7.55, a quick ratio of 0.96 and a current ratio of 1.32. The company has a market cap of $147.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.31, a P/E/G ratio of 3.02 and a beta of 0.55.

Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 30th. The medical research company reported $5.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $5.11 by $0.47. The company had revenue of $8.50 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.50 billion. Amgen had a net margin of 13.00% and a return on equity of 168.35%. The firm’s revenue was up 23.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $4.96 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that Amgen will post 19.51 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have weighed in on AMGN shares. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft decreased their target price on shares of Amgen from $305.00 to $285.00 in a research note on Wednesday, November 27th. Wolfe Research assumed coverage on shares of Amgen in a report on Friday, November 15th. They issued a “peer perform” rating on the stock. StockNews.com raised shares of Amgen from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday. UBS Group decreased their target price on shares of Amgen from $335.00 to $326.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. Finally, Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Amgen from $300.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have given a hold rating, eleven have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Amgen currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $319.68.

About Amgen

Amgen Inc discovers, develops, manufactures, and delivers human therapeutics worldwide. The company's principal products include Enbrel to treat plaque psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriatic arthritis; Otezla for the treatment of adult patients with plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, and oral ulcers associated with Behçet's disease; Prolia to treat postmenopausal women with osteoporosis; XGEVA for skeletal-related events prevention; Repatha, which reduces the risks of myocardial infarction, stroke, and coronary revascularization; Nplate for the treatment of patients with immune thrombocytopenia; KYPROLIS to treat patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma; Aranesp to treat a lower-than-normal number of red blood cells and anemia; EVENITY for the treatment of osteoporosis in postmenopausal for men and women; Vectibix to treat patients with wild-type RAS metastatic colorectal cancer; BLINCYTO for the treatment of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia; TEPEZZA to treat thyroid eye disease; and KRYSTEXXA for the treatment of chronic refractory gout.