Alibaba Group Holding Limited Announces — Dividend of $0.95 (NYSE:BABA)

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) announced a — dividend on Friday, May 16th, Wall Street Journal reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 12th will be given a dividend of 0.95 per share by the specialty retailer on Thursday, July 10th. This represents a dividend yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, June 12th.

Alibaba Group has a dividend payout ratio of 9.0% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Alibaba Group to earn $9.29 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 10.8%.

Alibaba Group Stock Down 0.4%

BABA stock opened at $123.37 on Friday. Alibaba Group has a 52-week low of $71.80 and a 52-week high of $148.43. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $123.38 and its 200-day simple moving average is $107.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a current ratio of 1.48 and a quick ratio of 1.48. The firm has a market capitalization of $294.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.83, a P/E/G ratio of 0.61 and a beta of 0.24.

Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The specialty retailer reported $2.77 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.84 by ($0.07). Alibaba Group had a net margin of 12.29% and a return on equity of 12.89%. The firm had revenue of $38.38 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $38.19 billion. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Alibaba Group will post 7.86 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Alibaba Group

An institutional investor recently bought a new position in Alibaba Group stock. AQR Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund bought 1,923 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock, valued at approximately $254,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 13.47% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on BABA. StockNews.com lowered shares of Alibaba Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday. Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded shares of Alibaba Group from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $104.00 to $165.00 in a report on Tuesday, February 25th. Loop Capital set a $176.00 price objective on shares of Alibaba Group in a research note on Friday. Morgan Stanley set a $180.00 price objective on shares of Alibaba Group in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Alibaba Group from $130.00 to $180.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 21st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $154.21.

Alibaba Group Company Profile

Alibaba Group Holding Limited, through its subsidiaries, provides technology infrastructure and marketing reach to help merchants, brands, retailers, and other businesses to engage with their users and customers in the People's Republic of China and internationally. The company operates through seven segments: China Commerce, International Commerce, Local Consumer Services, Cainiao, Cloud, Digital Media and Entertainment, and Innovation Initiatives and Others.