Matador Resources initiated its first dividend payout with a quarterly cash dividend of $0.025 per share.
Matador (MTDR) announced that the first quarterly dividend will be paid on March 31, to shareholders of record as of March 24. Shares rose 3.5% in Monday’s early morning trading.
The energy company’s annual dividend of $0.1 per share now reflects a dividend yield of 0.52%.
Matador CEO Joseph Wm. Foran commented, “We are pleased to initiate a quarterly cash dividend policy and announce the payment of Matador’s first cash dividend, which marks another significant step for Matador in returning value to our shareholders and also indicates our confidence in Matador’s financial strength and ability to generate sustained free cash flow going forward.” (See Matador stock analysis on TipRanks)
The company is scheduled to report 4Q and 2020 results on Feb. 23.
On Feb. 9, MKM Partners analyst John Gerdes downgraded the stock to Hold from Buy and increased the price target to $19 from $17. In a note to investors, the analyst said, “The stock has appreciated about 3-times since early November and now reflects fair value.”
Gerdes remains positive on “Matador’s solidly competitive full-cycle return” and believes that “the business should generate about a 7% average corporate return.”
Wall Street analysts are cautiously optimistic about the stock. The Moderate Buy consensus rating breaks down into 4 Buy ratings versus 2 Hold ratings. The average analyst price target stands at $17.50 and implies downside potential of about 11% to current levels. Shares have jumped more than 52% over the past year.
Additionally, Matador scores a 9 of 10 from TipRanks’ Smart Score rating system, indicating that the stock has strong potential to outperform market expectations.
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