Mesa Laboratories, Inc. (NASDAQ:MLAB) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.16

Mesa Laboratories, Inc. (NASDAQ:MLAB) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, January 7th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 28th will be paid a dividend of 0.16 per share by the medical instruments supplier on Monday, March 17th. This represents a $0.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.45%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 28th.

Mesa Laboratories has a payout ratio of 5.9% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Mesa Laboratories to earn $7.82 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.64 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 8.2%.

Mesa Laboratories Price Performance

MLAB opened at $142.03 on Thursday. Mesa Laboratories has a 52-week low of $83.68 and a 52-week high of $147.34. The stock has a market cap of $771.36 million, a P/E ratio of -3.12 and a beta of 0.82. The business has a fifty day moving average of $122.69 and a 200 day moving average of $119.60. The company has a quick ratio of 0.51, a current ratio of 0.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65.

Insider Buying and Selling at Mesa Laboratories

In other news, CEO Gary M. Owens sold 2,518 shares of Mesa Laboratories stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.62, for a total transaction of $286,095.16. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 45,888 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,213,794.56. The trade was a 5.20 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders own 4.40% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. StockNews.com lowered shares of Mesa Laboratories from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 13th. Evercore ISI lifted their price objective on Mesa Laboratories from $120.00 to $160.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 1st.

About Mesa Laboratories

Mesa Laboratories, Inc develops, designs, manufactures, sells, and services life sciences tools and quality control products and services in North America, Europe, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. The Sterilization and Disinfection Control segment offers biological, chemical, and cleaning indicators, used to assess the effectiveness of sterilization decontamination, disinfection, and cleaning processes in the pharmaceutical, medical device, and healthcare industries.