BP (NYSE:BP) Upgraded by StockNews.com to “Buy” Rating

StockNews.com upgraded shares of BP (NYSE:BP) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note published on Friday morning.

A number of other brokerages have also recently commented on BP. Piper Sandler dropped their price target on BP from $36.00 to $32.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Scotiabank lowered BP from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and decreased their price objective for the company from $42.00 to $36.00 in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. BNP Paribas lowered BP from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Redburn Atlantic lowered BP from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded BP to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 11th. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, five have given a buy rating and four have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $39.89.

BP Stock Up 0.6 %

BP stock opened at $31.32 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $29.49 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $32.00. 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 has a 1-year low of $27.82 and a 1-year high of $40.40. The stock has a market cap of $83.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.97, a P/E/G ratio of 2.13 and a beta of 0.64.

BP (NYSE:BP) last issued its quarterly 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 firm had revenue of $47.25 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $52.05 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.15 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that BP 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. Investors of record on Friday, November 8th were issued a dividend of $0.48 per share. This represents a $1.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.13%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 8th. BP’s dividend payout ratio is presently 200.00%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BP

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Atlas Brown Inc. boosted its holdings in BP by 1.2% during the 4th quarter. Atlas Brown Inc. now owns 37,338 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $1,104,000 after acquiring an additional 437 shares during the period. ST Germain D J Co. Inc. lifted its holdings in BP by 77.5% in the 4th quarter. ST Germain D J Co. Inc. now owns 8,073 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $239,000 after buying an additional 3,524 shares during the period. Bank & Trust Co lifted its holdings in BP by 404.8% in the 4th quarter. Bank & Trust Co now owns 2,120 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $63,000 after buying an additional 1,700 shares during the period. Versant Capital Management Inc lifted its holdings in BP by 41.0% in the 4th quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 2,221 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $66,000 after buying an additional 646 shares during the period. Finally, Anchor Investment Management LLC lifted its holdings in BP by 58.7% in the 3rd quarter. Anchor Investment Management LLC now owns 3,120 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $98,000 after buying an additional 1,154 shares during the period. 11.01% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About BP

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.