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

Prospect Capital Co. (NASDAQ:PSEC - Get Free Report) declared a dividend on Tuesday, May 6th, NASDAQ Dividends reports. Investors of record on Thursday, June 26th will be given a dividend of 0.045 per share by the financial services provider on Tuesday, July 22nd. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, June 26th.

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

Prospect Capital Trading Down 1.2%

PSEC stock traded down $0.04 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $3.24. The company had a trading volume of 4,288,558 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,923,057. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $3.67 and a 200 day moving average of $4.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60, a current ratio of 0.76 and a quick ratio of 0.76. Prospect Capital has a 12 month low of $3.24 and a 12 month high of $5.67. The company has a market capitalization of $1.44 billion, a PE ratio of -16.20 and a beta of 0.93.

Prospect Capital (NASDAQ:PSEC - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 8th. The financial services provider reported $0.19 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.14 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $170.72 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $174.29 million. Prospect Capital had a return on equity of 12.31% and a net margin of 1.18%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Prospect Capital

In other Prospect Capital news, CEO John F. Barry acquired 2,000,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 11th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $4.32 per share, for a total transaction of $8,640,000.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief executive officer now directly owns 81,501,933 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $352,088,350.56. This represents a 2.52% increase in their position. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director William Gremp bought 19,100 shares of Prospect Capital stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 18th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $4.29 per share, with a total value of $81,939.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now owns 75,153 shares in the company, valued at approximately $322,406.37. This trade represents a 34.07% increase in their position. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders bought 2,548,000 shares of company stock valued at $10,970,715. 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. Empowered Funds LLC grew its position in Prospect Capital Co. (NASDAQ:PSEC - Free Report) by 140.0% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 88,397 shares of the financial services provider's stock after buying an additional 51,562 shares during the quarter. Empowered Funds LLC's holdings in Prospect Capital were worth $362,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 9.06% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on PSEC shares. Wells Fargo & Company cut their target price on Prospect Capital from $3.50 to $3.00 and set an "underweight" rating for the company in a research note on Monday, May 12th. Wall Street Zen raised Prospect Capital from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Saturday, April 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.