Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (JEF) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.40 on August 28th

Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:JEF) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, June 24th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, August 18th will be given a dividend of 0.40 per share by the financial services provider on Friday, August 28th. This represents a c) dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, August 18th.

Jefferies Financial Group has increased its dividend payment by an average of 0.2%annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 2 years. Jefferies Financial Group has a dividend payout ratio of 38.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Jefferies Financial Group to earn $4.76 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 33.6%.

Jefferies Financial Group Trading Down 1.3%

Shares of NYSE:JEF opened at $55.14 on Friday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $55.94 and its 200 day simple moving average is $51.30. Jefferies Financial Group has a 1 year low of $35.53 and a 1 year high of $71.04. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.99, a current ratio of 0.98 and a quick ratio of 0.98. The company has a market capitalization of $10.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.40 and a beta of 1.54.

Jefferies Financial Group (NYSE:JEF) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, June 24th. The financial services provider reported $1.02 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.16 by ($0.14). The company had revenue of $2.21 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.30 billion. Jefferies Financial Group had a net margin of 7.58% and a return on equity of 9.23%. The business’s revenue was up 35.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.40 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that Jefferies Financial Group will post 3.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently weighed in on JEF. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on shares of Jefferies Financial Group from $42.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Monday, June 8th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Jefferies Financial Group in a report on Friday, June 5th. Oppenheimer reduced their price target on shares of Jefferies Financial Group from $87.00 to $83.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, June 25th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of Jefferies Financial Group from $44.00 to $50.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 9th. Finally, Weiss Ratings raised Jefferies Financial Group from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a report on Wednesday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $62.62.

About Jefferies Financial Group

Jefferies Financial Group Inc is a diversified financial services company that provides a range of investment banking, capital markets and asset management services to corporations, governments and institutional investors worldwide. Through its core platform, Jefferies offers advisory services for mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity underwriting, restructuring and recapitalization. The firm also operates a global sales and trading business covering equities, fixed income and foreign exchange products, complemented by equity research and macroeconomic analysis.

In addition to its capital markets franchise, Jefferies maintains a growing asset management division that delivers customized investment solutions across public and private markets.