Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) to Issue $0.12 Quarterly Dividend

Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, December 19th,Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Monday, December 30th will be given a dividend of 0.115 per share by the semiconductor manufacturer on Wednesday, January 15th. This represents a $0.46 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.53%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 30th.

Micron Technology has a dividend payout ratio of 5.1% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Micron Technology to earn $12.58 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.46 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 3.7%.

Micron Technology Trading Down 16.2 %

Shares of MU traded down $16.81 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $87.09. The company had a trading volume of 87,958,007 shares, compared to its average volume of 21,859,287. The company has a current ratio of 2.64, a quick ratio of 1.68 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29. The stock has a market cap of $97.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 128.08 and a beta of 1.16. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $103.85 and a 200-day simple moving average of $109.09. Micron Technology has a fifty-two week low of $78.63 and a fifty-two week high of $157.54.

Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The semiconductor manufacturer reported $1.79 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.60 by $0.19. The firm had revenue of $8.71 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.71 billion. Micron Technology had a net margin of 3.10% and a return on equity of 1.58%. Micron Technology’s revenue was up 84.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted ($0.95) earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Micron Technology will post 8.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on MU. Needham & Company LLC lowered their target price on Micron Technology from $140.00 to $120.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday. Raymond James lifted their price objective on shares of Micron Technology from $125.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on shares of Micron Technology from $180.00 to $145.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Cantor Fitzgerald dropped their price target on shares of Micron Technology from $150.00 to $130.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Bank of America lowered shares of Micron Technology from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $125.00 to $110.00 in a report on Thursday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and twenty-five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $133.56.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP April S. Arnzen sold 4,890 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.00, for a total transaction of $552,570.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 135,830 shares in the company, valued at $15,348,790. This trade represents a 3.47 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.30% of the company’s stock.

About Micron Technology

Micron Technology, Inc designs, develops, manufactures, and sells memory and storage products worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Compute and Networking Business Unit, Mobile Business Unit, Embedded Business Unit, and Storage Business Unit. It provides memory and storage technologies comprising dynamic random access memory semiconductor devices with low latency that provide high-speed data retrieval; non-volatile and re-writeable semiconductor storage devices; and non-volatile re-writable semiconductor memory devices that provide fast read speeds under the Micron and Crucial brands, as well as through private labels.