Dallas, Texas 10/28/2013 (Financialstrend) – The Swiss registered $17.82 billion market capitalized, off shore oil drilling firm Transocean Ltd. (NYSE:RIG) has managed to enter the rarefied group of business houses which pride themselves on being included and tracked by S&P 500 index. This was announced on October 21. It might be of academic interest to readers that the oil drilling firm is replacing a much storied and once market favourite Dell Inc, the underperforming hardware IT giant. In order to recover its winning traits the away from the constant public glare and scrutiny of a publicly traded company, the hardware maker is working on going private under its founder Michael Dell.
When the news of Transocean getting tracked by S&P got out, the stock reacted by posting a healthy +3.9% increase in its market value during trading on October 21. Since then the stock has posted a 7.87% increase in value. At close of business on October 25, the stock was trading at $49.5 per share. It was up 0.98% from its previous day close. The appreciation in value has been in progress over the past quarter, with the stock gaining by 9.8% during trading this month and by 6.52% this quarter.
One of the many reasons the stock has been chosen to get into the S&P 500 index other than its market cap is the steady increase in its sales and income on a quarter on quarter basis. In the past 12 months it has posted sales of $9.31 billion and registered close to $1.65 billion in net income for the same period. Its sales figures have seen a sequential increase of 2.9% in the past two quarters and its earnings per share has ballooned up to a 200% over its previous quarter. In the past year, the company has paid out dividend of $2.24 per share translating to a dividend of 4.53%