Creative Planning Increases Stock Position in Sempra (NYSE:SRE)

Creative Planning raised its position in Sempra (NYSE:SRE) by 16.8% during the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 78,726 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 11,303 shares during the quarter. Creative Planning’s holdings in Sempra were worth $5,988,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of SRE. Family Firm Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Sempra in the second quarter worth about $30,000. Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC bought a new position in Sempra during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Financial Connections Group Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Sempra in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $34,000. SouthState Corp increased its stake in shares of Sempra by 900.0% during the second quarter. SouthState Corp now owns 470 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $36,000 after buying an additional 423 shares during the period. Finally, Opal Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Sempra during the second quarter valued at approximately $39,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.65% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have issued reports on SRE shares. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on shares of Sempra from $90.00 to $93.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of Sempra from $87.00 to $89.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of Sempra from $80.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 25th. Evercore ISI upped their target price on Sempra from $83.00 to $84.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, Bank of America initiated coverage on Sempra in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $94.00 target price for the company. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Sempra has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $85.58.

Sempra Trading Down 1.0 %

Shares of NYSE:SRE opened at $82.53 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 0.46 and a quick ratio of 0.41. Sempra has a 1 year low of $64.29 and a 1 year high of $84.47. The company has a market cap of $52.25 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.28, a PEG ratio of 2.64 and a beta of 0.75. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $81.40 and its 200-day moving average price is $76.66.

Sempra (NYSE:SRE) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The utilities provider reported $0.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.92 by ($0.03). Sempra had a net margin of 22.31% and a return on equity of 8.58%. The company had revenue of $3.01 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.46 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.94 EPS. Sempra’s revenue was down 9.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that Sempra will post 4.79 earnings per share for the current year.

Sempra Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 26th will be issued a $0.62 dividend. This represents a $2.48 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.00%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 26th. Sempra’s dividend payout ratio is currently 54.93%.

Sempra Profile

Sempra operates as an energy infrastructure company in the United States and internationally. It operates through three segments: Sempra California, Sempra Texas Utilities, and Sempra Infrastructure. The Sempra California segment provides electric services; and natural gas services to San Diego County.