Insider Selling: The Weir Group PLC (LON:WEIR) Insider Sells 27,466 Shares of Stock

The Weir Group PLC (LON:WEIR - Get Free Report) insider Brian Puffer sold 27,466 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of GBX 2,302 ($29.70), for a total transaction of £632,267.32 ($815,618.32).

Brian Puffer also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Friday, February 28th, Brian Puffer sold 9,794 shares of The Weir Group stock. The stock was sold at an average price of GBX 2,414 ($31.14), for a total transaction of £236,427.16 ($304,988.60).

The Weir Group Stock Down 7.0 %

LON:WEIR traded down GBX 154 ($1.99) during trading hours on Friday, hitting GBX 2,058 ($26.55). The company's stock had a trading volume of 45,409,313 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,497,833. The stock has a market capitalization of £5.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.18, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.59 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a current ratio of 2.07, a quick ratio of 1.16 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 80.30. The stock has a fifty day moving average of GBX 2,355.16 and a 200-day moving average of GBX 2,242.13. The Weir Group PLC has a 52-week low of GBX 1,832 ($23.63) and a 52-week high of GBX 2,496 ($32.20).

The Weir Group (LON:WEIR - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 28th. The company reported GBX 120 ($1.55) EPS for the quarter. The Weir Group had a return on equity of 12.79% and a net margin of 8.60%. On average, equities analysts forecast that The Weir Group PLC will post 136.0509554 earnings per share for the current year.

The Weir Group Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 30th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 17th will be issued a dividend of GBX 22.10 ($0.29) per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th. This represents a yield of 0.92%. This is a boost from The Weir Group's previous dividend of $17.90. The Weir Group's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 45.83%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on The Weir Group from GBX 2,500 ($32.25) to GBX 2,700 ($34.83) and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a report on Monday, March 3rd.

The Weir Group Company Profile

The Weir Group PLC produces and sells highly engineered original equipment worldwide. It operates in two segments, Minerals and ESCO. The Minerals segment offers engineering, manufacturing, and service processing technology for the use in abrasive high-wear mining applications; and differentiated technology for the use in infrastructure and general industrial markets.