Plains All American Pipeline Sees Unusually High Options Volume (NYSE:PAA)

Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. (NYSE:PAA) saw some unusual options trading on Tuesday. Stock investors purchased 8,315 call options on the company. This is an increase of 40% compared to the typical volume of 5,953 call options.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have recently weighed in on PAA. Wolfe Research raised shares of Plains All American Pipeline from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $22.00 target price on the stock in a report on Friday, January 10th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Plains All American Pipeline from $18.00 to $19.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 16th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and issued a $19.00 target price on shares of Plains All American Pipeline in a report on Friday, November 15th. Wells Fargo & Company cut Plains All American Pipeline from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and dropped their price target for the company from $22.00 to $20.00 in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, Raymond James boosted their price objective on Plains All American Pipeline from $23.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $20.21.

Plains All American Pipeline Trading Down 4.4 %

Shares of NYSE:PAA traded down $0.88 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $19.08. 3,669,621 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,250,488. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $19.35 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $18.16. Plains All American Pipeline has a 1-year low of $16.21 and a 1-year high of $21.00. The firm has a market cap of $13.42 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.13 and a beta of 1.65. The company has a current ratio of 1.01, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64.

Plains All American Pipeline Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 31st were given a dividend of $0.38 per share. This is a boost from Plains All American Pipeline’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.32. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 31st. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 7.97%. Plains All American Pipeline’s payout ratio is presently 208.22%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its stake in Plains All American Pipeline by 58.9% in the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 7,221,571 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $125,439,000 after buying an additional 2,677,951 shares during the period. ING Groep NV increased its stake in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 194.5% in the 4th quarter. ING Groep NV now owns 3,892,637 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $66,486,000 after acquiring an additional 2,570,700 shares during the last quarter. Barclays PLC raised its position in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 110.4% in the 4th quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 4,226,335 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $72,186,000 after acquiring an additional 2,218,014 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. boosted its stake in Plains All American Pipeline by 4.6% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 27,827,930 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $475,301,000 after acquiring an additional 1,224,381 shares during the last quarter. Finally, MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. grew its holdings in Plains All American Pipeline by 8.6% during the fourth quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 15,297,594 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $261,283,000 after purchasing an additional 1,211,286 shares during the period. 41.78% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Plains All American Pipeline Company Profile

Plains All American Pipeline, L.P., through its subsidiaries, engages in the pipeline transportation, terminaling, storage, and gathering of crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGL) in the United States and Canada. The company operates through two segments, Crude Oil and NGL. The Crude Oil segment offers gathering and transporting crude oil through pipelines, gathering systems, trucks, and on barges or railcars.