Heartland Express (NASDAQ:HTLD) Issues Earnings Results, Misses Expectations By $0.07 EPS

Heartland Express (NASDAQ:HTLD) announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday. The transportation company reported ($0.19) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.12) by ($0.07), Briefing.com reports. The firm had revenue of $270.30 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $263.92 million. Heartland Express had a return on equity of 1.71% and a net margin of 1.22%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 18.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.16 earnings per share.

Heartland Express Price Performance

Heartland Express stock opened at $10.43 on Wednesday. Heartland Express has a 12-month low of $10.00 and a 12-month high of $17.08. The stock has a market cap of $824.28 million, a P/E ratio of 57.94 and a beta of 0.62. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $11.75 and a 200 day moving average price of $12.89. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34.

Heartland Express Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 5th. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 26th were given a dividend of $0.02 per share. This represents a $0.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.77%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 25th. Heartland Express’s payout ratio is currently 44.44%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, major shareholder Ann S. Gerdin Revocable Trust acquired 14,933 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 22nd. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $12.39 per share, for a total transaction of $185,019.87. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 159,865 shares in the company, valued at $1,980,727.35. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 39.80% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on HTLD shares. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Heartland Express from $15.00 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, February 12th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Heartland Express from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, March 11th. Barclays reduced their target price on shares of Heartland Express from $12.00 to $11.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, April 1st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on shares of Heartland Express from $14.00 to $13.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, April 9th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and four have assigned a hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Heartland Express presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $13.75.

Heartland Express Company Profile

Heartland Express, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a short-to-medium, and long-haul truckload carrier in the United States and Canada. It primarily provides nationwide asset-based dry van truckload service for shippers; cross-border freight and other transportation services; and temperature-controlled truckload services.