PriceSmart, Inc. (NASDAQ:PSMT) declared a semi-annual dividend on Tuesday, February 8th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, August 15th will be given a dividend of 0.43 per share on Wednesday, August 31st. This represents a yield of 1.2%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, August 12th.
PriceSmart has a payout ratio of 16.5% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings.
PSMT traded up $1.77 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $70.58. 59,379 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 120,345. The company has a quick ratio of 0.47, a current ratio of 1.32 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. The business’s 50 day moving average is $72.13 and its two-hundred day moving average is $77.60. PriceSmart has a fifty-two week low of $66.77 and a fifty-two week high of $104.90. The stock has a market cap of $2.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.60 and a beta of 0.86.
PriceSmart (NASDAQ:PSMT) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 6th. The company reported $0.98 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of $0.93 by $0.05. PriceSmart had a net margin of 2.71% and a return on equity of 11.09%. The firm had revenue of $975.36 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $967.86 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.90 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 11.2% on a year-over-year basis.
In other news, Director Robert E. Price sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, January 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $70.87, for a total value of $708,700.00. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Philanthropies Foundatio Price sold 8,936 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $79.81, for a total transaction of $713,182.16. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 60,001 shares of company stock valued at $4,477,433. Company insiders own 20.90% of the company’s stock.
A hedge fund recently bought a new stake in PriceSmart stock. Two Sigma Advisers LP purchased a new stake in shares of PriceSmart, Inc. (NASDAQ:PSMT) in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 4,200 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $326,000. 76.79% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
Separately, UBS Group upgraded shares of PriceSmart from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 7th.
About PriceSmart
PriceSmart, Inc engages in the international management and operation of membership warehouse clubs. It operates through the following geographical segments: United States Operations, Central American Operations, Caribbean Operations and Colombia Operations. The United States Operations covers include distribution centers and corporate offices.