Stock Traders Buy High Volume of Put Options on HP (NYSE:HPQ)

HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ) was the recipient of some unusual options trading on Thursday. Traders bought 19,974 put options on the company. This represents an increase of 56% compared to the average daily volume of 12,776 put options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Loop Capital dropped their price objective on HP from $35.00 to $30.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 4th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their price target on shares of HP from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on shares of HP from $36.00 to $35.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 28th. TD Cowen reduced their target price on shares of HP from $39.00 to $38.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Finally, StockNews.com raised HP from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 27th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, HP currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $36.14.

HP Stock Performance

HPQ traded down $4.05 during trading on Thursday, hitting $23.83. The stock had a trading volume of 7,642,401 shares, compared to its average volume of 7,469,265. The company has a market capitalization of $22.46 billion, a PE ratio of 8.48, a PEG ratio of 2.96 and a beta of 1.09. HP has a twelve month low of $22.97 and a twelve month high of $39.80. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $31.17 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $33.86.

HP (NYSE:HPQ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 27th. The computer maker reported $0.74 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.74. The business had revenue of $13.50 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.35 billion. HP had a negative return on equity of 253.39% and a net margin of 5.18%. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that HP will post 3.56 EPS for the current year.

HP Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, March 12th were issued a $0.2894 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, March 12th. This represents a $1.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.86%. HP’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 41.37%.

Insider Activity

In other HP news, insider Anneliese Olson sold 21,545 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $28.49, for a total transaction of $613,817.05. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 169 shares in the company, valued at $4,814.81. This represents a 99.22 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Stephanie Liebman sold 15,646 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, March 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $29.00, for a total transaction of $453,734.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.38% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On HP

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of HP in the fourth quarter worth about $229,320,000. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of HP by 8.2% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 51,801,428 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $1,871,046,000 after purchasing an additional 3,923,161 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings 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 valued at $885,877,000 after purchasing an additional 2,477,977 shares in the last quarter. KBC Group NV raised its position in shares of HP by 145.1% in the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 3,555,989 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $116,031,000 after acquiring an additional 2,105,104 shares during the period. Finally, C2P Capital Advisory Group LLC d.b.a. Prosperity Capital Advisors purchased a new stake in shares of HP during the 4th quarter worth about $65,260,000. 77.53% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About HP

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.