EQT (NYSE:EQT) Reaches New 52-Week High Following Analyst Upgrade

EQT Co. (NYSE:EQT)’s stock price reached a new 52-week high during trading on Friday after Jefferies Financial Group raised their price target on the stock from $45.00 to $55.00. Jefferies Financial Group currently has a buy rating on the stock. EQT traded as high as $48.33 and last traded at $48.06, with a volume of 725018 shares. The stock had previously closed at $47.35.

A number of other research analysts have also recently commented on EQT. UBS Group upped their price target on EQT from $40.00 to $42.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, November 4th. Truist Financial upped their price objective on shares of EQT from $32.00 to $41.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 26th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on shares of EQT from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, October 4th. StockNews.com raised shares of EQT to a “sell” rating in a report on Monday, December 30th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of EQT from $50.00 to $53.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $47.78.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other EQT news, Director Thomas F. Karam sold 30,154 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $44.83, for a total transaction of $1,351,803.82. Following the sale, the director now owns 201,608 shares in the company, valued at $9,038,086.64. This trade represents a 13.01 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 0.63% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On EQT

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Sanctuary Advisors LLC boosted its stake in EQT by 104.7% in the third quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 63,507 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $2,327,000 after buying an additional 32,484 shares in the last quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama lifted its holdings in shares of EQT by 36.7% in the 3rd quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 133,142 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $4,878,000 after acquiring an additional 35,733 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its stake in shares of EQT by 2.5% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,133,197 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock valued at $41,520,000 after purchasing an additional 28,129 shares in the last quarter. Tidal Investments LLC grew its holdings in shares of EQT by 55.8% during the 3rd quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 60,816 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock valued at $2,228,000 after purchasing an additional 21,789 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in EQT by 34.4% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,997,574 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $511,159,000 after purchasing an additional 3,582,418 shares during the period. 90.81% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

EQT Price Performance

The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $43.42 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $37.90. The firm has a market capitalization of $28.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 55.98 and a beta of 1.12. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65, a current ratio of 0.51 and a quick ratio of 0.51.

EQT (NYSE:EQT) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The oil and gas producer reported $0.12 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.06 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $1.28 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.35 billion. EQT had a return on equity of 3.74% and a net margin of 5.52%. EQT’s quarterly revenue was up 8.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.30 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that EQT Co. will post 1.37 earnings per share for the current year.

EQT Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 6th were issued a dividend of $0.1575 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, November 6th. This represents a $0.63 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.34%. EQT’s dividend payout ratio is currently 75.00%.

About EQT

EQT Corporation operates as a natural gas production company in the United States. The company sells natural gas and natural gas liquids to marketers, utilities, and industrial customers through pipelines located in the Appalachian Basin. It also offers marketing services and contractual pipeline capacity management services.