Principal Financial Group Inc. Acquires New Stake in Schneider National, Inc. (NYSE:SNDR)

Principal Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Schneider National, Inc. (NYSE:SNDR) in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor purchased 221,685 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,327,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in SNDR. Innealta Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Schneider National in the second quarter worth $53,000. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale purchased a new position in shares of Schneider National during the third quarter valued at about $73,000. Hilltop National Bank increased its holdings in shares of Schneider National by 28.5% in the second quarter. Hilltop National Bank now owns 3,044 shares of the company’s stock worth $74,000 after purchasing an additional 676 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Schneider National in the third quarter worth about $109,000. Finally, Hills Bank & Trust Co bought a new position in Schneider National during the third quarter valued at approximately $112,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 28.54% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on Schneider National from $26.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Citigroup downgraded shares of Schneider National from a “neutral” rating to a “sell” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $32.00 to $30.00 in a research note on Tuesday, November 12th. Bank of America upgraded Schneider National from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $27.00 to $34.00 in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on shares of Schneider National from $25.00 to $27.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their target price on shares of Schneider National from $26.00 to $25.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $28.31.

Schneider National Trading Up 0.9 %

NYSE SNDR opened at $31.16 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.53, a current ratio of 1.66 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.04. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $28.63 and a 200 day moving average price of $25.91. Schneider National, Inc. has a 52-week low of $20.50 and a 52-week high of $32.14. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.46 billion, a P/E ratio of 50.26, a P/E/G ratio of 3.67 and a beta of 0.85.

Schneider National (NYSE:SNDR) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The company reported $0.18 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.23 by ($0.05). The firm had revenue of $1.32 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.33 billion. Schneider National had a return on equity of 3.92% and a net margin of 2.10%. Equities research analysts expect that Schneider National, Inc. will post 0.7 EPS for the current year.

Schneider National Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 8th. Investors of record on Friday, December 13th will be paid a dividend of $0.095 per share. This represents a $0.38 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.22%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 13th. Schneider National’s payout ratio is 61.29%.

About Schneider National

Schneider National, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides surface transportation and logistics solutions in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It operates through three segments: Truckload, Intermodal, and Logistics. The Truckload segment offers over the road freight transportation services primarily through dry van, bulk, temperature-controlled, and flat-bed trailers across either network or dedicated configurations.