First Eagle Investment Management LLC Cuts Stock Holdings in Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD)

First Eagle Investment Management LLC lowered its stake in shares of Heartland Express, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTLD) by 0.6% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 662,675 shares of the transportation company’s stock after selling 4,000 shares during the quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC owned 0.84% of Heartland Express worth $8,171,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Hsbc Holdings PLC bought a new stake in shares of Heartland Express in the 2nd quarter worth $166,000. Inspire Advisors LLC raised its stake in Heartland Express by 11.8% in the 2nd quarter. Inspire Advisors LLC now owns 16,447 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $203,000 after acquiring an additional 1,732 shares during the period. Quest Partners LLC purchased a new position in Heartland Express during the 2nd quarter valued at about $230,000. Victory Capital Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Heartland Express by 40.5% during the 2nd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 32,058 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $395,000 after acquiring an additional 9,243 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legato Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Heartland Express by 15.8% during the second quarter. Legato Capital Management LLC now owns 178,227 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $2,198,000 after purchasing an additional 24,314 shares during the last quarter. 53.45% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Heartland Express

In other news, CEO Michael J. Gerdin bought 50,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 11th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $11.67 per share, for a total transaction of $583,500.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief executive officer now owns 1,196,718 shares in the company, valued at approximately $13,965,699.06. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Corporate insiders own 39.60% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the company. Barclays increased their price objective on Heartland Express from $10.00 to $11.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reiterated an “underweight” rating and set a $10.00 price target (down from $12.00) on shares of Heartland Express in a research report on Tuesday, July 9th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Heartland Express from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, UBS Group lowered shares of Heartland Express from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their target price for the company from $15.00 to $13.00 in a report on Tuesday, July 9th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and three have assigned a hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Heartland Express has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $12.00.

Heartland Express Trading Up 0.9 %

Shares of HTLD stock opened at $12.49 on Friday. The business has a 50-day moving average of $12.35 and a 200 day moving average of $11.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 1.23 and a quick ratio of 1.23. Heartland Express, Inc. has a 1-year low of $9.63 and a 1-year high of $15.66. The stock has a market capitalization of $987.35 million, a PE ratio of -73.47 and a beta of 0.69.

Heartland Express (NASDAQ:HTLD) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 23rd. The transportation company reported ($0.04) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.06) by $0.02. Heartland Express had a negative return on equity of 2.84% and a negative net margin of 2.17%. The firm had revenue of $274.80 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $275.23 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.10 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 10.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Heartland Express, Inc. will post -0.17 earnings per share for the current year.

Heartland Express Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, October 7th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 27th will be issued a $0.02 dividend. This represents a $0.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.64%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, September 27th. Heartland Express’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently -47.06%.

About Heartland Express

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.