Southern Copper Co. (NYSE:SCCO) Announces Dividend Increase – $0.70 Per Share

Southern Copper Co. (NYSE:SCCO) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 23rd,NASDAQ Dividends reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a dividend of 0.70 per share by the basic materials company on Thursday, February 27th. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.90%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, February 10th. This is a positive change from Southern Copper’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.60.

Southern Copper has decreased its dividend by an average of 37.0% annually over the last three years.

Southern Copper Trading Down 0.7 %

Shares of Southern Copper stock traded down $0.66 on Friday, hitting $96.52. 952,946 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 742,142. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $97.37 and its 200-day moving average price is $103.61. The company has a current ratio of 2.77, a quick ratio of 2.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64. Southern Copper has a 52 week low of $77.42 and a 52 week high of $129.79. The company has a market cap of $75.82 billion, a PE ratio of 24.85, a PEG ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 1.14.

Southern Copper (NYSE:SCCO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The basic materials company reported $1.15 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.12 by $0.03. Southern Copper had a net margin of 27.67% and a return on equity of 37.11%. The firm had revenue of $2.93 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.94 billion. Equities research analysts predict that Southern Copper will post 4.4 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

SCCO has been the topic of several analyst reports. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Southern Copper from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and cut their price target for the stock from $106.30 to $102.00 in a report on Thursday, December 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Southern Copper from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $92.50 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, December 2nd. Scotiabank cut their price target on shares of Southern Copper from $54.00 to $52.00 and set a “sector underperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, October 15th. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Southern Copper from $99.44 to $100.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Southern Copper currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $94.81.

About Southern Copper

Southern Copper Corporation engages in mining, exploring, smelting, and refining copper and other minerals in Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, and Chile. The company is involved in the mining, milling, and flotation of copper ore to produce copper and molybdenum concentrates; smelting of copper concentrates to produce blister and anode copper; refining of anode copper to produce copper cathodes; production of molybdenum concentrate and sulfuric acid; production of refined silver, gold, and other materials; and mining and processing of zinc, copper, molybdenum, silver, gold, and lead.