Silicon Motion Technology Co. Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.50 (NASDAQ:SIMO)

Silicon Motion Technology Co. (NASDAQ:SIMO) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 9th,NASDAQ Dividends reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 13th will be paid a dividend of 0.50 per share by the semiconductor producer on Thursday, February 27th. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.75%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 13th.

Silicon Motion Technology has raised its dividend payment by an average of 8.9% annually over the last three years. Silicon Motion Technology has a dividend payout ratio of 44.4% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Silicon Motion Technology to earn $4.56 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 43.9%.

Silicon Motion Technology Price Performance

SIMO opened at $53.28 on Tuesday. Silicon Motion Technology has a 1 year low of $48.81 and a 1 year high of $85.87. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $54.62 and its 200 day simple moving average is $57.23. The firm has a market cap of $1.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.81, a PEG ratio of 1.34 and a beta of 0.79.

Silicon Motion Technology (NASDAQ:SIMO) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 5th. The semiconductor producer reported $0.68 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.78 by ($0.10). Silicon Motion Technology had a net margin of 11.29% and a return on equity of 11.59%. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Silicon Motion Technology will post 2.91 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Craig Hallum cut their price objective on Silicon Motion Technology from $96.00 to $90.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 31st. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $70.00 price target on shares of Silicon Motion Technology in a report on Friday. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $90.00 price objective on shares of Silicon Motion Technology in a research report on Monday, December 23rd. StockNews.com raised shares of Silicon Motion Technology from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 5th. Finally, Susquehanna reduced their price target on shares of Silicon Motion Technology from $110.00 to $95.00 and set a “positive” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 1st. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Silicon Motion Technology presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $80.63.

Silicon Motion Technology declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase plan on Wednesday, February 5th that allows the company to buyback $50.00 million in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the semiconductor producer to reacquire up to 2.6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are often an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

About Silicon Motion Technology

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops, and markets NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices. The company offers controllers for computing-grade solid state drives (SSDs), which are used in PCs and other client devices; enterprise-grade SSDs used in data centers; eMMC and UFS mobile embedded storage for use in smartphones and IoT devices; flash memory cards and flash drives for use in expandable storage; and specialized SSDs that are used in industrial, commercial, and automotive applications.