Badger Meter, Inc. manufactures and markets flow measurement, quality, control, and communication solutions in the United States, Asia, Canada, Europe, Mexico, the Middle East, and internationally. It offers mechanical or static water meters, and related radio and software technologies and services to municipal water utilities. The company also provides flow instrumentation products, including meters, valves, and other sensing instruments to measure and control fluids going through a pipe or pipeline, including water, air, steam, oil, and other liquids and gases to original equipment manufacturers as the primary flow measurement device within a product or system, as well as through manufacturers' representatives. Its flow instrumentation products are used in water/wastewater, heating, ventilating and air conditioning, and corporate sustainability markets. In addition, the company offers ORION Migratable for automatic meter reading; ORION (SE) for traditional fixed network applications; and ORION Cellular for infrastructure-free fixed network meter reading solution, as well as BEACON advanced metering analytics, a secure cloud-hosted software suite that establishes alerts for specific conditions and allows consumer engagement tools that permit end water customers to view and manage their water usage activity. It also serves water utilities, industrial, and other industries. The company sells its products directly, as well as through resellers and representatives. Badger Meter, Inc. was incorporated in 1905 and is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth
A number of research firms have recently commented on BMI. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price objective on Badger Meter from $88.00 to $79.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 20th. StockNews.com cut Badger Meter from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Saturday, April 23rd. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on Badger Meter from $95.00 to $80.00 and set an "underweight" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, June 9th. TheStreet upgraded Badger Meter from a "c+" rating to a "b-" rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 3rd. Finally, Northcoast Research began coverage on Badger Meter in a research note on Friday, July 15th. They issued a "neutral" rating on the stock. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $94.67.
Badger Meter Stock Performance
Shares of NYSE:BMI traded up $0.19 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $102.61. The stock had a trading volume of 68,878 shares, compared to its average volume of 127,148. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $85.53 and a 200-day moving average price of $89.50. The stock has a market cap of $3.00 billion, a PE ratio of 46.77 and a beta of 0.86. Badger Meter has a 1-year low of $73.20 and a 1-year high of $112.36.
Badger Meter (NYSE:BMI - Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 20th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $0.57 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.53 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $137.80 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $132.04 million. Badger Meter had a return on equity of 15.83% and a net margin of 12.00%. The business's revenue was up 12.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.48 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Badger Meter will post 2.3 earnings per share for the current year.
Badger Meter Increases Dividend
The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 9th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 26th will be paid a dividend of $0.225 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, August 25th. This represents a $0.90 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.88%. This is a positive change from Badger Meter's previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. Badger Meter's payout ratio is 36.53%.
Insiders Place Their Bets
In other Badger Meter news, VP William R. A. Bergum sold 2,362 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $96.40, for a total transaction of $227,696.80. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 11,861 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,143,400.40. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. 0.80% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.