Insider Buying: National Bank of Canada (TSE:NA) Director Acquires 285 Shares of Stock

National Bank of Canada (TSE:NA) Director Yvon Charest purchased 285 shares of National Bank of Canada stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 19th. The stock was bought at an average price of C$133.71 per share, with a total value of C$38,107.35.

National Bank of Canada Stock Up 0.2 %

TSE NA traded up C$0.30 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting C$135.50. The company had a trading volume of 650,549 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,728,886. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of C$129.70 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of C$119.55. National Bank of Canada has a fifty-two week low of C$87.92 and a fifty-two week high of C$135.53. The stock has a market cap of C$46.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.20, a P/E/G ratio of 7.14 and a beta of 1.12.

National Bank of Canada (TSE:NA) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The financial services provider reported C$2.68 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of C$2.50 by C$0.18. National Bank of Canada had a net margin of 34.50% and a return on equity of 15.18%. The company had revenue of C$2.98 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of C$2.95 billion. As a group, equities analysts predict that National Bank of Canada will post 10.8360791 earnings per share for the current year.

National Bank of Canada Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 1st. Investors of record on Monday, September 30th were paid a $1.10 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, September 27th. This represents a $4.40 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.25%. National Bank of Canada’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 42.84%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have commented on NA. CIBC downgraded National Bank of Canada from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 20th. TD Securities lifted their price target on National Bank of Canada from C$129.00 to C$140.00 in a research note on Friday. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on National Bank of Canada from C$113.00 to C$116.00 in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Desjardins upped their price target on National Bank of Canada from C$116.00 to C$118.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 6th. Finally, Cibc World Mkts lowered National Bank of Canada from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, September 20th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, National Bank of Canada currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of C$126.36.

National Bank of Canada Company Profile

National Bank of Canada provides financial services to individuals, businesses, institutional clients, and governments in Canada and internationally. It operates through four segments: Personal and Commercial, Wealth Management, Financial Markets, and U.S. Specialty Finance and International. The Personal and Commercial segment offers personal banking services, including transaction solutions, mortgage loans and home equity lines of credit, consumer loans, payment solutions, and savings and investment solutions; various insurance products; and commercial banking services, such as credit, and deposit, investment solutions, international trade, foreign exchange transactions, payroll, cash management, insurance, electronic transactions, and complimentary services.