U.S. Bancorp Sees Big Dividend Hike With Buyback (USB)

U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB) not only hit a new 52-week high today, it went up 4.5% to $31.01 against a prior range of $20.10 to $29.88 over the last year.  The trust bank has now approved a more than 50% increase on its common stock to $0.195 per share per quarter.  The new $0.78 per share dividend on an annualized basis came to a 2.5% dividend yield versus about 1.7% currently.

The bank’s board of directors also approved a share buyback plan to repurchase up to 100 million shares of its common stock in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions.  As of the close, that would be about $3.1 billion and the bank’s market cap is $59 billion.  Today’s plan goes through March 2013.

This is a big dividend hike, but its yield is still not exactly screaming.