Discover Financial Services Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.70 (NYSE:DFS)

Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, October 16th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be given a dividend of 0.70 per share by the financial services provider on Thursday, December 5th. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.90%.

Discover Financial Services has raised its dividend payment by an average of 15.3% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 13 consecutive years. Discover Financial Services has a payout ratio of 22.0% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Discover Financial Services to earn $12.94 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 21.6%.

Discover Financial Services Stock Performance

NYSE DFS opened at $147.54 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $37.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.82, a PEG ratio of 0.94 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a quick ratio of 1.04, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.28. Discover Financial Services has a twelve month low of $79.04 and a twelve month high of $149.97. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $136.12 and its 200 day simple moving average is $130.75.

Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 17th. The financial services provider reported $6.06 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.06 by $3.00. The business had revenue of $4.54 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.18 billion. Discover Financial Services had a return on equity of 20.92% and a net margin of 12.88%. Discover Financial Services’s quarterly revenue was up 17.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $3.54 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Discover Financial Services will post 13.15 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have issued reports on DFS. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on Discover Financial Services from $140.00 to $148.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, July 19th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Discover Financial Services from $132.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, July 19th. Evercore ISI upped their price objective on shares of Discover Financial Services from $140.00 to $156.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research note on Monday, October 7th. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of Discover Financial Services from $135.00 to $137.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, July 19th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their price target on Discover Financial Services from $145.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, July 8th. Thirteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $133.88.

Discover Financial Services Company Profile

Discover Financial Services, through its subsidiaries, provides digital banking products and services, and payment services in the United States. It operates in two segments, Digital Banking and Payment Services. The Digital Banking segment offers Discover-branded credit cards to individuals; personal loans, home loans, and other consumer lending; and direct-to-consumer deposit products comprising savings accounts, certificates of deposit, money market accounts, IRA certificates of deposit, IRA savings accounts and checking accounts, and sweep accounts.