Deere & Company manufactures and distributes various equipment worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Production and Precision Agriculture, Small Agriculture and Turf, Construction and Forestry, and Financial Services. The Production and Precision Agriculture segment provides mid-size tractors, combines, cotton pickers and strippers, sugarcane harvesters, harvesting front-end equipment, sugarcane loaders, pull-behind scrapers, and tillage and seeding equipment, as well as application equipment, including sprayers and nutrient management, and soil preparation machinery for grain growers. The Small Agriculture and Turf segment offers utility tractors, and related loaders and attachments; turf and utility equipment, including riding lawn equipment, commercial mowing equipment, golf course equipment, and utility vehicles, as well as implements for mowing, tilling, snow and debris handling, aerating, residential, commercial, golf, and sports turf care applications; other outdoor power products; and hay and forage equipment. This segment also resells products from other manufacturers. It serves dairy and livestock producers, crop producers, and turf and utility customers. The Construction and Forestry segment provides a range of backhoe loaders, crawler dozers and loaders, four-wheel-drive loaders, excavators, motor graders, articulated dump trucks, landscape and skid-steer loaders, milling machines, pavers, compactors, rollers, crushers, screens, asphalt plants, log skidders, log feller bunchers, log loaders and forwarders, log harvesters, and attachments; and roadbuilding equipment. The Financial Services segment finances sales and leases agriculture and turf, and construction and forestry equipment. It also offers wholesale financing to dealers of the foregoing equipment; and extended equipment warranties, as well as finances retail revolving charge accounts. Deere & Company was founded in 1837 and is headquartered in Moline, Illinois.
Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth
A number of analysts have recently commented on DE shares. Barclays cut their price objective on shares of Deere & Company from $415.00 to $400.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, May 23rd. Citigroup upgraded Deere & Company from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and decreased their price objective for the company from $435.00 to $340.00 in a report on Thursday, July 7th. Cowen reduced their price target on Deere & Company from $396.00 to $342.00 in a research report on Thursday, July 7th. Robert W. Baird lowered their price target on Deere & Company from $487.00 to $442.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research report on Sunday, May 22nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on shares of Deere & Company from $452.00 to $416.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research note on Monday, July 18th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Deere & Company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $399.56.
Deere & Company Price Performance
DE Stock traded up $1.50 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $344.81. The stock had a trading volume of 24,991 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,937,372. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $323.02 and a 200 day simple moving average of $364.66. The firm has a market capitalization of $105.39 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.91, a P/E/G ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a current ratio of 2.07, a quick ratio of 1.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.72. Deere & Company has a 52 week low of $283.81 and a 52 week high of $446.76.
Deere & Company (NYSE:DE - Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, May 20th. The industrial products company reported $6.81 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $6.65 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $12.03 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.16 billion. Deere & Company had a net margin of 12.99% and a return on equity of 33.58%. The company's revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $5.68 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Deere & Company will post 23.3 EPS for the current year.
Deere & Company Increases Dividend
The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, August 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, June 30th will be paid a $1.13 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, June 29th. This is a positive change from Deere & Company's previous quarterly dividend of $1.05. This represents a $4.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.31%. Deere & Company's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.58%.
Insider Buying and Selling at Deere & Company
In related news, insider John H. Stone sold 17,145 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $4,321.07, for a total value of $74,084,745.15. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 21,087 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $91,118,403.09. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Company insiders own 0.24% of the company's stock.