Wheaton Precious Metals Hikes Dividend By 30% As Quarterly Results Disappoint

Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. reported lower-than-expected results in the fourth quarter. Additionally, the metal mining company announced a 30% hike in its quarterly dividend.

Wheaton’s (WPM) 4Q earnings more than doubled to $0.33 per share but missed the consensus estimates of $0.34 per share. The company posted 4Q revenues of $286 million, which fell short of the Street’s estimates of $311 million but increased 28% from the year-ago period. The year-over-year improvement in sales reflects higher average realized gold prices.

As for 2021, Wheaton expects to produce 370,000-400,000 ounces of gold and 22.5-24.0 million ounces of silver. Moreover, the company seeks to produce 40,000-45,000 gold equivalent ounces (GEOs) of other metals. (See Wheaton Precious Metals stock analysis on TipRanks)

Besides 4Q results, the company announced a 30% increase in its quarterly dividend to $0.13 per share. The new dividend will be paid on April 13, 2021, to shareholders of record as of March 26, 2021. Its annual dividend of $0.52 per share now reflects a dividend yield of 1.4%.

On March 7, BMO Capital analyst Jackie Przybylowski upgraded the stock to Buy from Hold as she maintains a favorable outlook on royalty and streaming companies. The analyst maintained a price target of $57 (49.4% upside potential).

Overall, the Street has a Strong Buy consensus rating on the stock based on 10 Buys and 2 Holds. The average analyst price target of $51.65 implies upside potential of 35.4% to current levels. Shares have gained by about 31% in one year.

Furthermore, TipRanks data shows that financial blogger opinions are 90% bullish, compared to a sector average of 68%.

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