Southern Copper Co. (NYSE:SCCO) Increases Dividend to $0.70 Per Share

Southern Copper Co. (NYSE:SCCO) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 23rd,NASDAQ Dividends reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a dividend of 0.70 per share by the basic materials company on Thursday, February 27th. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.90%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, February 10th. This is a positive change from Southern Copper’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.60.

Southern Copper has decreased its dividend payment by an average of 37.0% annually over the last three years.

Southern Copper Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE SCCO traded down $0.66 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $96.52. 952,946 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 742,142. The company has a quick ratio of 2.31, a current ratio of 2.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64. The firm has a market cap of $75.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.85, a PEG ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 1.14. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $97.37 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $103.61. Southern Copper has a twelve month low of $77.42 and a twelve month high of $129.79.

Southern Copper (NYSE:SCCO) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The basic materials company reported $1.15 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.12 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $2.93 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.94 billion. Southern Copper had a return on equity of 37.11% and a net margin of 27.67%. As a group, analysts anticipate that Southern Copper will post 4.4 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently commented on SCCO. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Southern Copper from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and cut their price target for the stock from $106.30 to $102.00 in a report on Thursday, December 12th. Citigroup boosted their target price on shares of Southern Copper from $99.44 to $100.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Southern Copper from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $92.50 price target on the stock in a research note on Monday, December 2nd. Finally, Scotiabank cut their price objective on Southern Copper from $54.00 to $52.00 and set a “sector underperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, October 15th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $94.81.

About Southern Copper

Southern Copper Corporation engages in mining, exploring, smelting, and refining copper and other minerals in Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, and Chile. The company is involved in the mining, milling, and flotation of copper ore to produce copper and molybdenum concentrates; smelting of copper concentrates to produce blister and anode copper; refining of anode copper to produce copper cathodes; production of molybdenum concentrate and sulfuric acid; production of refined silver, gold, and other materials; and mining and processing of zinc, copper, molybdenum, silver, gold, and lead.