Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) Announces $0.98 Quarterly Dividend

Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, January 10th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 7th will be paid a dividend of 0.98 per share by the business services provider on Thursday, February 27th. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.82%.

Paychex has increased its dividend by an average of 13.8% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. Paychex has a payout ratio of 69.4% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Paychex to earn $5.31 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.92 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 73.8%.

Paychex Stock Performance

PAYX opened at $139.06 on Friday. Paychex has a 1-year low of $114.72 and a 1-year high of $150.71. The stock has a market cap of $50.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.65, a P/E/G ratio of 3.88 and a beta of 1.00. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $142.35 and its 200 day simple moving average is $134.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a current ratio of 1.38 and a quick ratio of 1.38.

Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The business services provider reported $1.14 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.12 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $1.32 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.31 billion. Paychex had a return on equity of 45.97% and a net margin of 31.98%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 4.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $1.08 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Paychex will post 4.98 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on PAYX. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of Paychex from $125.00 to $142.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and issued a $148.00 price objective on shares of Paychex in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on Paychex from $130.00 to $141.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on Paychex from $122.00 to $133.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Paychex from $133.00 to $139.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and eleven have assigned a hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $132.23.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Robert L. Schrader sold 13,015 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $142.35, for a total value of $1,852,685.25. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 17,362 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,471,480.70. The trade was a 42.84 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 11.40% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

About Paychex

Paychex, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated human capital management solutions (HCM) for payroll, benefits, human resources (HR), and insurance services for small to medium-sized businesses in the United States, Europe, and India. It offers payroll processing services; payroll tax administration services; employee payment services; and regulatory compliance services, such as new-hire reporting and garnishment processing.