Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL) Increases Dividend to $0.58 Per Share

Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL) declared a quarterly dividend on Monday, December 2nd,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, February 19th will be given a dividend of 0.58 per share by the financial services provider on Monday, March 3rd. This represents a $2.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.16%. This is a boost from Aflac’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50.

Aflac has increased its dividend payment by an average of 14.5% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 43 consecutive years. Aflac has a payout ratio of 27.9% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Aflac to earn $7.21 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 27.7%.

Aflac Stock Down 3.6 %

NYSE:AFL traded down $4.03 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $107.37. 724,374 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,203,079. The company has a fifty day moving average of $111.23 and a 200 day moving average of $101.63. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 0.08 and a current ratio of 0.08. Aflac has a twelve month low of $75.07 and a twelve month high of $115.50. The company has a market capitalization of $59.65 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.78, a P/E/G ratio of 2.18 and a beta of 0.97.

Aflac (NYSE:AFL) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 30th. The financial services provider reported $2.16 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.69 by $0.47. The firm had revenue of $2.95 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.30 billion. Aflac had a net margin of 22.02% and a return on equity of 16.34%. Aflac’s revenue was down 40.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.84 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Aflac will post 7.27 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

AFL has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Aflac from $85.00 to $90.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, October 3rd. UBS Group lifted their target price on Aflac from $84.00 to $109.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 14th. Truist Financial raised their price target on shares of Aflac from $100.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of Aflac from $91.00 to $98.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, August 19th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of Aflac to $107.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $97.93.

Aflac Company Profile

Aflac Incorporated, through its subsidiaries, provides supplemental health and life insurance products. The company operates through Aflac Japan and Aflac U.S. segments. The Aflac Japan segment offers cancer, medical, nursing care, work leave, GIFT, and whole and term life insurance products, as well as WAYS and child endowment plans under saving type insurance products in Japan.