HireQuest (NASDAQ:HQI) Declares Stock Repurchase Program

HireQuest (NASDAQ:HQI) announced that its board has authorized a share repurchase program on Wednesday, December 17th, RTT News reports. The company plans to buyback $20.00 million in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to repurchase up to 18.4% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have commented on HQI. Barrington Research reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $13.00 price target on shares of HireQuest in a report on Wednesday, November 12th. Weiss Ratings cut HireQuest from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research report on Monday. Finally, DA Davidson set a $15.00 target price on HireQuest in a research report on Tuesday, December 2nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $14.00.

HireQuest Price Performance

HireQuest stock opened at $8.70 on Friday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $8.59 and a 200 day simple moving average of $9.42. The company has a market capitalization of $122.67 million, a PE ratio of 17.40 and a beta of 1.13. HireQuest has a one year low of $7.38 and a one year high of $15.75.

HireQuest (NASDAQ:HQI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The company reported $0.24 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.14 by $0.10. HireQuest had a return on equity of 14.48% and a net margin of 21.92%.The firm had revenue of $8.50 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.11 million. Equities analysts anticipate that HireQuest will post 0.28 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

HireQuest Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 15th. Investors of record on Monday, December 1st were issued a $0.06 dividend. This represents a $0.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 1st. HireQuest’s payout ratio is currently 48.00%.

About HireQuest

HireQuest, Inc provides temporary staffing services in the United States. It offers staffing services, including direct-dispatch, executive search, consultant, unskilled and semi-skilled industrial and construction personnel, clerical and administrative personnel, and permanent placement services, as well as commercial and non-CDL drivers, and skilled personnel in the medical and dental industries.