Investors Buy High Volume of Put Options on Enbridge (NYSE:ENB)

Enbridge Inc. (NYSE:ENB) (TSE:ENB) was the target of some unusual options trading on Wednesday. Stock investors acquired 20,216 put options on the company. This is an increase of 1,036% compared to the average daily volume of 1,779 put options.

Institutional Trading of Enbridge

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Enbridge by 4.1% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 91,617,146 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $3,888,507,000 after buying an additional 3,611,421 shares during the last quarter. GQG Partners LLC lifted its holdings in Enbridge by 2.1% during the 4th quarter. GQG Partners LLC now owns 74,290,740 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $3,151,500,000 after buying an additional 1,495,742 shares during the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Enbridge by 2.8% during the 4th quarter. TD Asset Management Inc. now owns 38,752,759 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $1,643,935,000 after buying an additional 1,040,799 shares during the last quarter. Deutsche Bank AG lifted its holdings in Enbridge by 13.9% during the 4th quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 36,336,212 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $1,541,745,000 after buying an additional 4,426,684 shares during the last quarter. Finally, CIBC Asset Management Inc lifted its holdings in Enbridge by 4.0% during the 3rd quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 24,161,024 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $984,205,000 after buying an additional 936,863 shares during the last quarter. 54.60% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Enbridge Trading Down 0.9 %

ENB opened at $41.95 on Friday. Enbridge has a 12 month low of $32.85 and a 12 month high of $45.78. The stock has a market capitalization of $91.40 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.39, a PEG ratio of 4.03 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.41, a current ratio of 0.62 and a quick ratio of 0.54. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $43.35 and a 200 day moving average price of $41.84.

Enbridge (NYSE:ENB) (TSE:ENB) last released its earnings results on Friday, February 14th. The pipeline company reported $0.75 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.52 by $0.23. Enbridge had a return on equity of 10.15% and a net margin of 10.04%. The firm had revenue of $11.59 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.78 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.64 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Enbridge will post 2.12 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Enbridge Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Saturday, March 1st. Shareholders of record on Saturday, February 15th will be issued a dividend of $0.67 per share. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.39%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 14th. Enbridge’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 155.81%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on ENB shares. Wells Fargo & Company raised Enbridge from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. TD Securities started coverage on Enbridge in a research note on Wednesday, January 15th. They issued a “buy” rating for the company. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on Enbridge from $63.00 to $67.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, Morgan Stanley started coverage on Enbridge in a research note on Friday, October 25th. They set an “equal weight” rating for the company. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $67.00.

About Enbridge

Enbridge Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy infrastructure company. The company operates through five segments: Liquids Pipelines, Gas Transmission and Midstream, Gas Distribution and Storage, Renewable Power Generation, and Energy Services. The Liquids Pipelines segment operates pipelines and related terminals to transport various grades of crude oil and other liquid hydrocarbons in Canada and the United States.