New Mexico Educational Retirement Board Sells 1,500 Shares of The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE:WMB)

New Mexico Educational Retirement Board reduced its stake in shares of The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE:WMB) by 2.5% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 58,128 shares of the pipeline company’s stock after selling 1,500 shares during the quarter. New Mexico Educational Retirement Board’s holdings in Williams Companies were worth $3,146,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its stake in shares of Williams Companies by 19.0% during the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 35,734,666 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $1,631,288,000 after buying an additional 5,697,605 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Williams Companies by 1.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 30,722,702 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $1,398,004,000 after buying an additional 520,663 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Williams Companies by 0.9% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 7,239,210 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $330,470,000 after buying an additional 67,016 shares during the last quarter. Swiss National Bank grew its stake in shares of Williams Companies by 0.3% during the third quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 3,617,300 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $165,130,000 after buying an additional 9,800 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Barclays PLC grew its stake in shares of Williams Companies by 3.4% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 3,271,141 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $149,326,000 after buying an additional 108,675 shares during the last quarter. 86.44% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently issued reports on WMB. Barclays raised their target price on Williams Companies from $46.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Mizuho raised their target price on Williams Companies from $47.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, November 4th. UBS Group raised their target price on Williams Companies from $55.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, November 15th. CIBC raised their target price on Williams Companies from $45.00 to $54.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, October 22nd. Finally, Truist Financial raised their target price on Williams Companies from $56.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $53.29.

Williams Companies Price Performance

WMB stock opened at $57.00 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $55.85 and a 200-day moving average price of $51.65. The Williams Companies, Inc. has a 52-week low of $33.03 and a 52-week high of $61.46. The firm has a market capitalization of $69.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.05, a PEG ratio of 5.06 and a beta of 1.04. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.67, a quick ratio of 0.51 and a current ratio of 0.57.

Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The pipeline company reported $0.47 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.47. Williams Companies had a net margin of 27.36% and a return on equity of 15.89%. Equities research analysts forecast that The Williams Companies, Inc. will post 1.91 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Williams Companies Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 14th will be issued a dividend of $0.50 per share. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.51%. This is a positive change from Williams Companies’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.48. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 14th. Williams Companies’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 80.17%.

Williams Companies Profile

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.