Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.75 (NASDAQ:LECO)

Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LECO) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 20th, Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 31st will be paid a dividend of 0.75 per share by the industrial products company on Tuesday, April 15th. This represents a $3.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.42%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 31st.

Lincoln Electric has raised its dividend by an average of 11.3% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 30 consecutive years. Lincoln Electric has a payout ratio of 30.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Lincoln Electric to earn $10.08 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 29.8%.

Lincoln Electric Stock Performance

Shares of Lincoln Electric stock opened at $211.64 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.25, a current ratio of 1.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.87. The company has a market cap of $11.94 billion, a PE ratio of 25.97, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.54 and a beta of 1.18. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $194.92 and a 200-day moving average price of $196.18. Lincoln Electric has a 52 week low of $169.51 and a 52 week high of $261.13.

Lincoln Electric (NASDAQ:LECO) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The industrial products company reported $2.57 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.03 by $0.54. The company had revenue of $1.02 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $995.94 million. Lincoln Electric had a return on equity of 40.19% and a net margin of 11.63%. Equities analysts anticipate that Lincoln Electric will post 9.36 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently commented on LECO. KeyCorp increased their price target on Lincoln Electric from $230.00 to $245.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, February 14th. Barclays increased their price target on Lincoln Electric from $220.00 to $235.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their price objective on Lincoln Electric from $216.00 to $211.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 24th. Finally, StockNews.com raised Lincoln Electric from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 4th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Lincoln Electric currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $233.60.

Lincoln Electric Company Profile

Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc, through its subsidiaries, designs, develops, manufactures, and sells welding, cutting, and brazing products worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Americas Welding, International Welding, and The Harris Products Group. It offers brazing and soldering filler metals, arc welding equipment, plasma and oxyfuel cutting systems, wire feeding systems, fume control equipment, welding accessories, and specialty gas regulators, and education solutions, as well as a portfolio of automated solutions for joining, cutting, material handling, module assembly, and end of line testing, as well as involved in brazing and soldering alloys, and in the retail business in the United States.