Ituran Location and Control Ltd. (NASDAQ:ITRN) Announces Dividend Increase – $0.50 Per Share

Ituran Location and Control Ltd. (NASDAQ:ITRN) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 27th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 20th will be given a dividend of 0.50 per share by the industrial products company on Thursday, April 3rd. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 20th. This is an increase from Ituran Location and Control’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.39.

Ituran Location and Control has raised its dividend payment by an average of 20.1% per year over the last three years. Ituran Location and Control has a payout ratio of 48.3% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings.

Ituran Location and Control Stock Performance

Shares of Ituran Location and Control stock traded down $1.13 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $42.78. 402,533 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 223,359. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $33.83 and its 200-day moving average price is $29.99. The stock has a market cap of $851.07 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.39 and a beta of 1.15. Ituran Location and Control has a 12 month low of $24.12 and a 12 month high of $45.43.

Ituran Location and Control (NASDAQ:ITRN) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The industrial products company reported $0.70 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.68 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $82.88 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $81.81 million. Ituran Location and Control had a net margin of 15.65% and a return on equity of 28.31%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Barclays increased their target price on Ituran Location and Control from $35.00 to $50.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday.

About Ituran Location and Control

Ituran Location and Control Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides location based telematics services and machine-to-machine telematics products. It operates through two segments, Telematics Services and Telematics Products. The Telematics services segment offers stolen vehicle recovery and tracking services, which enables to locate, track, and recover stolen vehicles for its subscribers; fleet management services that enable corporate and individual customers to track and manage their vehicles in real time; and locator services that allow customers to protect valuable merchandise and equipment.