Seagate Technology Holdings PLC Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.72 (NASDAQ:STX)

Key Points

• Seagate Technology Holdings PLC has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.72 per share, equivalent to an annualized dividend of $2.88, which provides a yield of 1.95% for shareholders of record on September 30th.
• In its latest earnings report, Seagate Technology beat analysts' expectations with an earnings per share (EPS) of $2.59, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.45, boosting its revenue by 29.5% year-over-year.
• The company has authorized a $5.00 billion stock repurchase program, indicating that its board believes the stock may be undervalued, allowing for the buyback of up to 21.6% of its shares.

Seagate Technology Holdings PLC (NASDAQ:STX - Get Free Report) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, July 30th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 30th will be given a dividend of 0.72 per share by the data storage provider on Thursday, October 9th. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 30th.

Seagate Technology has a payout ratio of 29.9% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Seagate Technology to earn $11.08 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.88 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 26.0%.

Seagate Technology Stock Down 1.1%

Seagate Technology stock traded down $1.76 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $155.26. The stock had a trading volume of 1,758,675 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,021,387. The company has a 50-day moving average of $136.48 and a two-hundred day moving average of $106.78. The company has a market cap of $32.95 billion, a PE ratio of 22.91 and a beta of 1.45. Seagate Technology has a fifty-two week low of $63.19 and a fifty-two week high of $157.45.

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.45 by $0.14. Seagate Technology had a negative return on equity of 169.60% and a net margin of 16.15%. The company had revenue of $2.44 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.40 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.05 EPS. The company's revenue was up 29.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts forecast that Seagate Technology will post 6.83 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Seagate Technology news, CEO William D. Mosley sold 70,000 shares of Seagate Technology stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $109.47, for a total transaction of $7,662,900.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 485,677 shares in the company, valued at approximately $53,167,061.19. The trade was a 12.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, EVP Ban Seng Teh sold 63,418 shares of Seagate Technology stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, June 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $125.00, for a total value of $7,927,250.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president owned 14,658 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,832,250. This represents a 81.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 395,516 shares of company stock valued at $47,831,398 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.81% of the company's stock.

Institutional Trading of Seagate Technology

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Harbor Asset Planning Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Seagate Technology in the 2nd quarter valued at about $27,000. Ameriflex Group Inc. bought a new position in Seagate Technology during the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. Elequin Capital LP bought a new position in Seagate Technology during the fourth quarter worth about $27,000. Fourth Dimension Wealth LLC bought a new stake in shares of Seagate Technology during the fourth quarter worth approximately $27,000. Finally, GoalVest Advisory LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Seagate Technology by 30.6% during the second quarter. GoalVest Advisory LLC now owns 320 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $46,000 after acquiring an additional 75 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.87% of the company's stock.

About Seagate Technology

Seagate Technology Holdings plc provides data storage technology and solutions in Singapore, the United States, the Netherlands, and internationally. It provides mass capacity storage products, including enterprise nearline hard disk drives (HDDs), enterprise nearline solid state drives (SSDs), enterprise nearline systems, video and image HDDs, and network-attached storage drives.