By Darrell McKinsey

September 9, 2018 - News stories about Alliance Resource Partners (NASDAQ:ARLP) have been trending somewhat positive this week, Accern reports. Accern scores the sentiment of news coverage by reviewing more than 20 million blog and news sources in real time. Accern ranks coverage of public companies on a scale of negative one to one, with scores nearest to one being the most favorable. Alliance Resource Partners earned a news impact score of 0.02 on Accern’s scale. Accern also gave media headlines about the energy company an impact score of 45.2875636236568 out of 100, indicating that recent news coverage is somewhat unlikely to have an impact on the company’s share price in the next few days.

Shares of ARLP opened at $19.85 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $2.61 billion, a PE ratio of 6.92 and a beta of 0.78. The company has a quick ratio of 0.90, a current ratio of 1.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. Alliance Resource Partners has a 52 week low of $15.55 and a 52 week high of $21.90.

Alliance Resource Partners (NASDAQ:ARLP) last issued its earnings results on Monday, July 30th. The energy company reported $0.64 EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.64. The company had revenue of $516.10 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $491.55 million. Alliance Resource Partners had a return on equity of 24.78% and a net margin of 19.77%. The business’s revenue was up 29.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.82 EPS. equities analysts expect that Alliance Resource Partners will post 2.71 earnings per share for the current year.

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, August 14th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, August 7th were given a $0.52 dividend. This is a positive change from Alliance Resource Partners’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, August 6th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 10.48%. Alliance Resource Partners’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 72.47%.

Alliance Resource Partners declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase program on Thursday, May 31st that permits the company to repurchase $100.00 million in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the energy company to buy up to 3.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. Zacks Investment Research upgraded Alliance Resource Partners from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and set a $23.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Monday, August 6th. ValuEngine upgraded Alliance Resource Partners from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 31st. BidaskClub upgraded Alliance Resource Partners from a “strong sell” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Saturday, July 21st. Finally, MKM Partners upgraded Alliance Resource Partners from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, June 1st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. The company presently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $24.50.

In other news, Director Nick Carter bought 2,219 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 8th. The stock was bought at an average price of $19.85 per share, for a total transaction of $44,047.15. Following the transaction, the director now owns 20,000 shares in the company, valued at $397,000. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. 44.03% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.