Smiths News (LON:SNWS) Shares Down 9.5% – What’s Next?

Smiths News plc (LON:SNWS)’s stock price traded down 9.5% during mid-day trading on Friday . The stock traded as low as GBX 59.40 ($0.73) and last traded at GBX 61.20 ($0.75). 1,615,870 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 37% from the average session volume of 1,183,762 shares. The stock had previously closed at GBX 67.60 ($0.83).

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, Canaccord Genuity Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a GBX 95 ($1.17) target price on shares of Smiths News in a research note on Tuesday, November 5th.

Smiths News Trading Down 1.3 %

The company has a market cap of £143.20 million, a P/E ratio of 671.11, a PEG ratio of 0.29 and a beta of 0.83. The business has a 50 day moving average price of GBX 63.04 and a 200-day moving average price of GBX 59.84.

Smiths News Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, February 6th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 9th will be given a dividend of GBX 5.40 ($0.07) per share. This is a positive change from Smiths News’s previous dividend of $1.75. This represents a yield of 9.47%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 9th. Smiths News’s dividend payout ratio is 5,555.56%.

Insider Activity

In other Smiths News news, insider Deborah Rabey bought 20,663 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 29th. The shares were purchased at an average price of GBX 63 ($0.78) per share, for a total transaction of £13,017.69 ($16,017.83). Also, insider Jonathan Bunting sold 490,569 shares of Smiths News stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of GBX 61 ($0.75), for a total transaction of £299,247.09 ($368,213.47). Insiders sold a total of 1,993,578 shares of company stock valued at $121,608,258 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 13.12% of the company’s stock.

Smiths News Company Profile

In 1792 we started delivering the nation’s newspapers. Today, we’re proud to be the UK’s largest wholesaler of newspapers and magazines, serving 24,000 retailers from superstores to corner shops.

Service and efficiency put us at the forefront of our industry and with 55% market share we are the leading player in one of the world’s fastest-moving supply chains.