Virtu Financial, Inc. (NYSE:VIRT) Stock to Pay Quarterly Dividend of $0.24

Virtu Financial, Inc. (NYSE:VIRT) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, November 5th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, December 1st will be given a dividend of $0.24 per share on Tuesday, December 15th. This represents a $0.96 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.8%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, December 1st.

Virtu Financial has a dividend payout ratio of 23.8% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Virtu Financial to earn $6.31 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.96 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 15.2%.

Virtu Financial Trading Up 1.8%

Virtu Financial stock opened at $53.99 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.87, a current ratio of 0.45 and a quick ratio of 0.45. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $57.88 and its 200-day moving average price is $52.34. Virtu Financial has a 1 year low of $31.55 and a 1 year high of $68.76. The stock has a market cap of $8.38 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.88, a PEG ratio of 0.39 and a beta of 0.67.

Virtu Financial (NYSE:VIRT) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, November 5th. The company reported $1.77 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.52 by $0.25. The company had revenue of $956.39 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $647.02 million. Virtu Financial had a net margin of 13.50% and a return on equity of 49.06%. Virtu Financial’s quarterly revenue was up 147.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.05 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts predict that Virtu Financial will post 6.46 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on VIRT. Wall Street Zen lowered Virtu Financial from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Virtu Financial from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $84.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, October 5th. Zacks Research downgraded Virtu Financial from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 24th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of Virtu Financial in a research note on Wednesday, August 26th. Finally, Evercore upgraded Virtu Financial to an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, October 5th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $68.25.

Virtu Financial Company Profile

Virtu Financial, Inc is a global financial services company that provides liquidity, trading, and technology solutions to the financial markets. Through its market-making business, Virtu facilitates trading in a broad range of products, including equities, exchange-traded funds, options, fixed income, foreign exchange, commodities, and certain digital assets.

The company also operates an execution services business that provides trading and workflow technology to institutional investors, asset managers, broker-dealers, and other financial institutions.