Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) CEO Purchases $689,700.00 in Stock

Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) CEO Michael J. Gerdin acquired 66,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, April 26th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $10.45 per share, with a total value of $689,700.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief executive officer now owns 518,594 shares in the company, valued at $5,419,307.30. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website.

Heartland Express Trading Up 4.6 %

HTLD stock opened at $10.40 on Thursday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $11.41 and a 200 day moving average price of $12.68. Heartland Express, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $9.63 and a fifty-two week high of $17.08. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a current ratio of 1.26. The firm has a market cap of $821.91 million, a PE ratio of -61.18 and a beta of 0.62.

Heartland Express (NASDAQ:HTLD) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The transportation company reported ($0.19) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.12) by ($0.07). The business had revenue of $270.30 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $263.92 million. Heartland Express had a negative net margin of 1.13% and a negative return on equity of 1.50%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 18.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.16 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Heartland Express, Inc. will post -0.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Heartland Express Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 5th. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 26th were given a $0.02 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 25th. This represents a $0.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.77%. Heartland Express’s dividend payout ratio is presently -47.06%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have issued reports on HTLD. Barclays cut their price objective on shares of Heartland Express from $11.00 to $10.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on shares of Heartland Express from $13.00 to $12.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 24th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Heartland Express from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 24th. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Heartland Express from $15.00 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, February 12th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and three have assigned a hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $13.25.

Institutional Trading of Heartland Express

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of HTLD. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its position in Heartland Express by 99.2% in the third quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,224,494 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $17,988,000 after buying an additional 609,769 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates bought a new stake in Heartland Express in the fourth quarter worth $8,559,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in Heartland Express by 9.1% in the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,172,549 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $45,241,000 after buying an additional 264,313 shares during the last quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC lifted its position in Heartland Express by 115.0% in the third quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 394,367 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $5,793,000 after buying an additional 210,935 shares during the last quarter. Finally, GSA Capital Partners LLP bought a new stake in Heartland Express in the third quarter worth $1,662,000. 53.45% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.