Barclays Issues Positive Forecast for HP (NYSE:HPQ) Stock Price

HP (NYSE:HPQ) had its target price boosted by stock analysts at Barclays from $32.00 to $35.00 in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an “equal weight” rating on the computer maker’s stock. Barclays‘s price objective suggests a potential downside of 2.67% from the stock’s current price.

Several other equities analysts have also issued reports on HPQ. UBS Group boosted their target price on HP from $34.00 to $37.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. TD Cowen upped their target price on shares of HP from $32.00 to $39.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Loop Capital reduced their price target on shares of HP from $37.00 to $35.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on shares of HP from $37.00 to $36.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on HP from $42.00 to $41.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, November 20th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, HP has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $36.36.

HP Price Performance

HPQ opened at $35.96 on Wednesday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $36.56 and a 200 day simple moving average of $35.53. HP has a fifty-two week low of $27.42 and a fifty-two week high of $39.79. The company has a market cap of $34.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.70 and a beta of 1.07.

HP (NYSE:HPQ) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, November 26th. The computer maker reported $0.93 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.93. HP had a net margin of 5.33% and a negative return on equity of 266.37%. The company had revenue of $14.06 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $13.99 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.90 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts expect that HP will post 3.39 EPS for the current year.

HP announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase plan on Wednesday, August 28th that permits the company to repurchase $10.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the computer maker to repurchase up to 28.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Transactions at HP

In other HP news, CEO Enrique Lores sold 211,501 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $33.16, for a total value of $7,013,373.16. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 3 shares in the company, valued at approximately $99.48. The trade was a 100.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. 0.41% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of HP

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of HP by 8.2% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 51,801,428 shares of the computer maker’s stock valued at $1,871,046,000 after acquiring an additional 3,923,161 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of HP by 11.1% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 24,770,491 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $885,877,000 after purchasing an additional 2,477,977 shares during the last quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA raised its stake in shares of HP by 6.2% during the 2nd quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 22,451,096 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $786,237,000 after purchasing an additional 1,319,731 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of HP by 11.4% in the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 14,184,306 shares of the computer maker’s stock valued at $508,791,000 after buying an additional 1,455,138 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc grew its stake in shares of HP by 11.3% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 10,710,450 shares of the computer maker’s stock valued at $375,079,000 after buying an additional 1,089,848 shares in the last quarter. 77.53% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

HP Company Profile

HP Inc provides products, technologies, software, solutions, and services to individual consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses, and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health, and education sectors worldwide. It operates through Personal Systems and Printing segments. The Personal Systems segment offers commercial personal computers (PCs), consumer PCs, workstations, thin clients, commercial tablets and mobility devices, retail point-of-sale systems, displays and other related accessories, software, support, and services for the commercial and consumer markets.