Danaher Co. (DHR) To Go Ex-Dividend on December 27th

Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR) announced a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, December 10th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, December 27th will be paid a dividend of 0.27 per share by the conglomerate on Friday, January 31st. This represents a $1.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.47%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, December 27th.

Danaher has raised its dividend by an average of 13.4% annually over the last three years. Danaher has a dividend payout ratio of 12.9% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Danaher to earn $8.38 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.08 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 12.9%.

Danaher Stock Up 0.7 %

Shares of Danaher stock opened at $230.75 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $166.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 44.04, a PEG ratio of 4.33 and a beta of 0.83. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $241.38 and a two-hundred day moving average of $255.86. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a current ratio of 1.37. Danaher has a one year low of $222.53 and a one year high of $281.70.

Danaher (NYSE:DHR) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The conglomerate reported $1.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.57 by $0.14. Danaher had a net margin of 16.39% and a return on equity of 10.62%. The firm had revenue of $5.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.59 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.02 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts forecast that Danaher will post 7.5 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently weighed in on DHR shares. Guggenheim initiated coverage on Danaher in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $275.00 price target on the stock. Stephens restated an “overweight” rating and set a $315.00 target price on shares of Danaher in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Barclays cut their price target on shares of Danaher from $285.00 to $275.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Raymond James decreased their price objective on shares of Danaher from $310.00 to $300.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Finally, Bank of America raised shares of Danaher from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $290.00 target price for the company in a report on Friday, December 13th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $287.05.

About Danaher

Danaher Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets professional, medical, industrial, and commercial products and services worldwide. The Biotechnology segments offers bioprocess technologies, consumables, and services that advance, accelerate, and integrate the development and manufacture of therapeutics; cell line and cell culture media development services; cell culture media, process liquids and buffers for manufacturing, chromatography resins, filtration technologies, aseptic fill finish; single-use hardware and consumables and services, such as the design and installation of full manufacturing suites; lab filtration, separation, and purification; lab-scale protein purification and analytical tools; reagents, membranes, and services; and healthcare filtration solutions.