Prospect Capital Co. (NASDAQ:PSEC) Declares Dividend of $0.05

Prospect Capital Co. (NASDAQ:PSEC - Get Free Report) announced a dividend on Wednesday, May 28th, investing.com reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, May 29th will be given a dividend of 0.045 per share by the financial services provider on Wednesday, June 18th. This represents a yield of 16.46%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 28th.

Prospect Capital has decreased its dividend by an average of 2.1% per year over the last three years. Prospect Capital has a dividend payout ratio of 114.9% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments.

Prospect Capital Stock Performance

NASDAQ:PSEC traded down $0.07 during trading hours on Monday, reaching $3.22. The company had a trading volume of 2,977,672 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,944,823. The firm's 50 day moving average price is $3.63 and its 200-day moving average price is $4.11. The firm has a market cap of $1.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -16.10 and a beta of 0.93. Prospect Capital has a 52 week low of $3.21 and a 52 week high of $5.67. The company has a current ratio of 0.76, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60.

Prospect Capital (NASDAQ:PSEC - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The financial services provider reported $0.19 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.14 by $0.05. Prospect Capital had a net margin of 1.18% and a return on equity of 12.31%. The business had revenue of $170.72 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $174.29 million.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Prospect Capital news, Director William Gremp bought 19,100 shares of Prospect Capital stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 18th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $4.29 per share, for a total transaction of $81,939.00. Following the acquisition, the director now directly owns 75,153 shares in the company, valued at approximately $322,406.37. This represents a 34.07% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO John F. Barry bought 240,000 shares of Prospect Capital stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 13th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $4.20 per share, for a total transaction of $1,008,000.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief executive officer now owns 81,981,933 shares in the company, valued at approximately $344,324,118.60. The trade was a 0.29% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders have purchased a total of 2,548,000 shares of company stock worth $10,970,715 in the last 90 days. 28.25% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Prospect Capital

A hedge fund recently raised its stake in Prospect Capital stock. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Prospect Capital Co. (NASDAQ:PSEC - Free Report) by 29.3% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 393,034 shares of the financial services provider's stock after purchasing an additional 89,139 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. owned about 0.09% of Prospect Capital worth $1,611,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. 9.06% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

PSEC has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Prospect Capital from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Saturday, April 12th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price target on shares of Prospect Capital from $3.50 to $3.00 and set an "underweight" rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, May 12th.

About Prospect Capital

Prospect Capital Corporation is a business development company. It specializes in middle market, mature, mezzanine finance, later stage, emerging growth, leveraged buyouts, refinancing, acquisitions, recapitalizations, turnaround, growth capital, development, capital expenditures and subordinated debt tranches of collateralized loan obligations, cash flow term loans, market place lending and bridge transactions.