BP p.l.c. (NYSE:BP) Shares Bought by Versant Capital Management Inc

Versant Capital Management Inc raised its holdings in shares of BP p.l.c. (NYSE:BP) by 41.0% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 2,221 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock after buying an additional 646 shares during the quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc’s holdings in BP were worth $66,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. Quantbot Technologies LP purchased a new position in BP in the third quarter valued at approximately $5,089,000. SG Americas Securities LLC grew its position in shares of BP by 860.7% in the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 66,464 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $2,086,000 after buying an additional 59,546 shares during the last quarter. Integrated Investment Consultants LLC acquired a new stake in BP during the 3rd quarter worth $857,000. Kornitzer Capital Management Inc. KS lifted its position in BP by 5.4% in the third quarter. Kornitzer Capital Management Inc. KS now owns 454,980 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $14,282,000 after acquiring an additional 23,325 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Altrius Capital Management Inc increased its position in shares of BP by 9.9% during the third quarter. Altrius Capital Management Inc now owns 233,776 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $7,338,000 after purchasing an additional 20,976 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 11.01% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently issued reports on BP. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded BP to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 11th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on shares of BP from $33.00 to $31.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Redburn Atlantic cut shares of BP from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. BNP Paribas lowered shares of BP from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Finally, Scotiabank downgraded shares of BP from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $42.00 to $36.00 in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Twelve equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and four have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $41.10.

BP Stock Performance

Shares of BP stock opened at $30.47 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 1.22, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66. BP p.l.c. has a 12-month low of $27.82 and a 12-month high of $40.40. The company has a market cap of $81.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.07, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.13 and a beta of 0.64. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $29.32 and a 200-day simple moving average of $32.10.

BP (NYSE:BP) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The oil and gas exploration company reported $0.83 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.78 by $0.05. BP had a return on equity of 12.91% and a net margin of 1.36%. The company had revenue of $47.25 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $52.05 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.15 earnings per share. BP’s quarterly revenue was down 11.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts forecast that BP p.l.c. will post 3.55 EPS for the current year.

BP Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 20th. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 8th were given a dividend of $0.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 8th. This represents a $1.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.30%. BP’s payout ratio is currently 200.00%.

BP Profile

BP p.l.c. provides carbon products and services. The company operates through Gas & Low Carbon Energy, Oil Production & Operations, and Customers & Products segments. It engages in the production of natural gas, and integrated gas and power; trading of gas; operation of onshore and offshore wind power, as well as hydrogen and carbon capture and storage facilities; trading and marketing of renewable and non-renewable power; and production of crude oil.