Hills Bank & Trust Co Acquires Shares of 2,500 Werner Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ:WERN)

Hills Bank & Trust Co bought a new position in Werner Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ:WERN) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund bought 2,500 shares of the transportation company’s stock, valued at approximately $106,000.

A number of other large investors have also made changes to their positions in WERN. Blue Trust Inc. boosted its stake in Werner Enterprises by 139.9% in the 4th quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 703 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $30,000 after purchasing an additional 410 shares during the period. Headlands Technologies LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Werner Enterprises in the third quarter valued at $36,000. Planned Solutions Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Werner Enterprises in the fourth quarter worth $57,000. Strs Ohio grew its holdings in shares of Werner Enterprises by 35.3% during the third quarter. Strs Ohio now owns 2,300 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $89,000 after buying an additional 600 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Covestor Ltd raised its position in Werner Enterprises by 46.5% during the third quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 2,402 shares of the transportation company’s stock valued at $94,000 after buying an additional 762 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.32% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have commented on WERN. TD Cowen decreased their price objective on Werner Enterprises from $42.00 to $38.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, May 1st. Robert W. Baird dropped their price objective on shares of Werner Enterprises from $46.00 to $42.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, May 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on shares of Werner Enterprises from $37.00 to $36.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, May 1st. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on Werner Enterprises from $60.00 to $59.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. Finally, Stephens lowered their price target on Werner Enterprises from $42.00 to $40.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 3rd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $40.83.

Werner Enterprises Stock Performance

WERN stock traded up $0.13 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $36.99. 680,384 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 641,788. Werner Enterprises, Inc. has a twelve month low of $33.12 and a twelve month high of $47.27. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.35 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.70 and a beta of 0.82. The company has a quick ratio of 1.85, a current ratio of 1.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $37.32 and a 200-day simple moving average of $39.04.

Werner Enterprises (NASDAQ:WERN) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 30th. The transportation company reported $0.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.28 by ($0.14). The firm had revenue of $769.08 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $788.30 million. Werner Enterprises had a net margin of 2.59% and a return on equity of 6.15%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 7.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.60 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Werner Enterprises, Inc. will post 1.52 earnings per share for the current year.

Werner Enterprises Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, May 1st. Investors of record on Monday, April 15th were paid a dividend of $0.14 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, April 12th. This represents a $0.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.51%. Werner Enterprises’s payout ratio is 42.75%.

About Werner Enterprises

Werner Enterprises, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in transporting truckload shipments of general commodities in interstate and intrastate commerce in the United States, Mexico, and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Truckload Transportation Services and Werner Logistics.