Cottonwood Capital Advisors LLC Sells 363 Shares of Williams Companies, Inc. (The) (NYSE:WMB)

Cottonwood Capital Advisors LLC reduced its stake in shares of Williams Companies, Inc. (The) (NYSE:WMB) by 5.0% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 6,903 shares of the pipeline company’s stock after selling 363 shares during the quarter. Cottonwood Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Williams Companies were worth $412,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in WMB. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC lifted its holdings in Williams Companies by 27.5% during the 1st quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 402,967 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $24,081,000 after purchasing an additional 87,031 shares during the last quarter. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Williams Companies by 14.0% in the first quarter. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. now owns 85,839 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $5,130,000 after acquiring an additional 10,561 shares during the last quarter. Cerity Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Williams Companies by 4.3% in the 4th quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 183,317 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $9,224,000 after acquiring an additional 7,618 shares in the last quarter. Good Steward Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Williams Companies during the 1st quarter worth approximately $977,000. Finally, NEOS Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in Williams Companies by 31.4% during the 4th quarter. NEOS Investment Management LLC now owns 72,904 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $3,946,000 after purchasing an additional 17,420 shares in the last quarter. 86.44% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have commented on the company. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Williams Companies from $58.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 25th. Royal Bank Of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $63.00 price objective on shares of Williams Companies in a research report on Friday, May 16th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on shares of Williams Companies from $64.00 to $67.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 28th. Barclays upped their price objective on Williams Companies from $56.00 to $58.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, March 21st. Finally, CIBC lifted their target price on Williams Companies from $56.00 to $57.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $61.25.

Williams Companies Stock Performance

WMB stock opened at $60.77 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $74.10 billion, a PE ratio of 32.50, a P/E/G ratio of 4.51 and a beta of 0.65. The company has a current ratio of 0.40, a quick ratio of 0.36 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.63. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $59.22 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $57.51. Williams Companies, Inc. has a 1-year low of $40.41 and a 1-year high of $61.67.

Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) last announced its earnings results on Monday, May 5th. The pipeline company reported $0.60 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.55 by $0.05. Williams Companies had a net margin of 21.18% and a return on equity of 15.95%. The firm had revenue of $3.05 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.90 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.59 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 10.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts forecast that Williams Companies, Inc. will post 2.08 earnings per share for the current year.

Williams Companies Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 30th. Investors of record on Friday, June 13th will be issued a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, June 13th. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.29%. Williams Companies’s payout ratio is presently 106.95%.

About Williams Companies

The Williams Companies, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy infrastructure company primarily in the United States. It operates through Transmission & Gulf of Mexico, Northeast G&P, West, and Gas & NGL Marketing Services segments. The Transmission & Gulf of Mexico segment comprises natural gas pipelines; Transco, Northwest pipeline, MountainWest, and related natural gas storage facilities; and natural gas gathering and processing, and crude oil production handling and transportation assets in the Gulf Coast region.