ALLETE, Inc. (NYSE:ALE) Announces Dividend of $0.70

ALLETE, Inc. (NYSE:ALE) announced a dividend on Thursday, July 25th, NASDAQ reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, August 15th will be paid a dividend of 0.7005 per share by the utilities provider on Sunday, September 1st. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 15th.

ALLETE has increased its dividend payment by an average of 3.1% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. ALLETE has a dividend payout ratio of 69.3% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect ALLETE to earn $4.02 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.82 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 70.1%.

ALLETE Stock Up 0.1 %

Shares of ALE stock traded up $0.09 during trading on Friday, reaching $64.56. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 238,715 shares, compared to its average volume of 401,850. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $63.02 and a 200-day moving average price of $60.55. The company has a quick ratio of 0.96, a current ratio of 1.66 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52. The company has a market cap of $3.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.50 and a beta of 0.80. ALLETE has a one year low of $49.29 and a one year high of $65.86.

ALLETE (NYSE:ALE) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 9th. The utilities provider reported $0.97 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.09 by ($0.12). The business had revenue of $403.30 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $581.26 million. ALLETE had a return on equity of 7.21% and a net margin of 13.94%. Analysts anticipate that ALLETE will post 3.75 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently commented on ALE shares. Mizuho boosted their price objective on shares of ALLETE from $57.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 16th. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of ALLETE in a research report on Friday. They set a “hold” rating on the stock. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $62.00.

About ALLETE

ALLETE, Inc operates as an energy company. The company operates through Regulated Operations, ALLETE Clean Energy, and Corporate and Other segments. It generates electricity from coal-fired, biomass co-fired / natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, and solar. In addition, the company provides regulated utility electric services in northwestern Wisconsin to approximately 15,000 electric customers, 13,000 natural gas customers, and 10,000 water customers, as well as regulated utility electric services in northeastern Minnesota to approximately 150,000 retail customers and 14 non-affiliated municipal customers.