BP p.l.c. (NYSE:BP) Sees Significant Growth in Short Interest

BP p.l.c. (NYSE:BP) was the target of a large increase in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 10,490,000 shares, an increase of 30.5% from the October 15th total of 8,040,000 shares. Approximately 0.4% of the company’s shares are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 8,150,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 1.3 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Rothschild Investment LLC purchased a new stake in shares of BP in the second quarter worth $2,620,000. LRI Investments LLC bought a new position in BP in the 1st quarter worth $32,000. Kornitzer Capital Management Inc. KS raised its holdings in BP by 4.6% during the second quarter. Kornitzer Capital Management Inc. KS now owns 431,655 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $15,583,000 after acquiring an additional 19,140 shares during the period. AdvisorNet Financial Inc lifted its position in shares of BP by 93.4% in the second quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 16,070 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $580,000 after acquiring an additional 7,761 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wedge Capital Management L L P NC grew its position in shares of BP by 26.7% during the second quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC now owns 629,568 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $22,727,000 after purchasing an additional 132,750 shares in the last quarter. 11.01% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have commented on BP shares. Barclays upgraded shares of BP to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 31st. Scotiabank lowered BP from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and dropped their price target for the company from $42.00 to $36.00 in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered BP from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. UBS Group raised shares of BP to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. Finally, Hsbc Global Res raised shares of BP to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 8th. Eleven 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’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $42.73.

BP Price Performance

BP opened at $29.05 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $78.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.58, a P/E/G ratio of 1.91 and a beta of 0.65. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $31.26 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $34.12. BP has a 52-week low of $27.82 and a 52-week high of $40.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a current ratio of 1.22.

BP (NYSE:BP) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The oil and gas exploration company reported $0.83 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.78 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $47.25 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $52.05 billion. BP had a return on equity of 12.91% and a net margin of 1.36%. BP’s revenue was down 11.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.15 earnings per share. As a group, analysts predict that BP will post 3.68 EPS for the current year.

BP Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 20th. Investors of record on Friday, November 8th will be given a dividend of $0.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 8th. This represents a $1.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.61%. BP’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 200.00%.

BP Company Profile

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.