Sunbelt Securities Inc. Grows Stake in ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE)

Sunbelt Securities Inc. boosted its position in shares of ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE) by 144.1% in the second quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 7,649 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,516 shares during the quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc.’s holdings in ONEOK were worth $624,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of OKE. Tortoise Capital Advisors L.L.C. grew its position in ONEOK by 3.5% during the second quarter. Tortoise Capital Advisors L.L.C. now owns 6,795,313 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $554,158,000 after buying an additional 232,043 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp increased its stake in shares of ONEOK by 1.5% in the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 5,754,127 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $404,055,000 after purchasing an additional 85,736 shares in the last quarter. Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors LP grew its holdings in ONEOK by 28.7% during the first quarter. Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors LP now owns 3,705,367 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $297,059,000 after purchasing an additional 825,464 shares during the period. First Eagle Investment Management LLC increased its position in ONEOK by 12.3% in the first quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 3,465,068 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $277,795,000 after buying an additional 378,509 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Energy Income Partners LLC increased its position in ONEOK by 10.3% in the first quarter. Energy Income Partners LLC now owns 3,434,728 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $275,362,000 after buying an additional 319,487 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 69.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

OKE has been the subject of several analyst reports. Citigroup increased their target price on shares of ONEOK from $85.00 to $102.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of ONEOK from $89.00 to $92.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 26th. Scotiabank upped their target price on shares of ONEOK from $88.00 to $102.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Friday, August 30th. Truist Financial boosted their price objective on ONEOK from $81.00 to $83.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 31st. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded ONEOK from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $103.00 to $111.00 in a research report on Monday, September 16th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $92.38.

ONEOK Trading Up 1.3 %

Shares of NYSE OKE opened at $92.31 on Wednesday. ONEOK, Inc. has a 1-year low of $60.58 and a 1-year high of $96.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.22, a current ratio of 0.62 and a quick ratio of 0.41. The business’s 50 day moving average is $88.40 and its two-hundred day moving average is $83.25. The stock has a market capitalization of $53.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.47, a PEG ratio of 4.71 and a beta of 1.67.

ONEOK (NYSE:OKE) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, August 5th. The utilities provider reported $1.33 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.21 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $4.89 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.52 billion. ONEOK had a return on equity of 15.54% and a net margin of 13.41%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.04 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that ONEOK, Inc. will post 5.09 EPS for the current year.

ONEOK Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, August 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, August 1st were issued a dividend of $0.99 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 1st. This represents a $3.96 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.29%. ONEOK’s payout ratio is 92.09%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other ONEOK news, Director Pattye L. Moore sold 3,379 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $92.01, for a total transaction of $310,901.79. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.20% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About ONEOK

ONEOK, Inc engages in gathering, processing, fractionation, storage, transportation, and marketing of natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) in the United States. It operates through four segments: Natural Gas Gathering and Processing, Natural Gas Liquids, Natural Gas Pipelines, and Refined Products and Crude.