Capital Investment Advisors LLC Increases Stake in HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ)

Capital Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ) by 3.2% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 18,845 shares of the computer maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 589 shares during the quarter. Capital Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in HP were worth $615,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its holdings in HP by 16.1% in the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,153,924 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $41,391,000 after acquiring an additional 160,268 shares during the last quarter. Tidal Investments LLC boosted its stake in HP by 47.5% in the 3rd quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 146,608 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $5,259,000 after purchasing an additional 47,230 shares during the period. MML Investors Services LLC boosted its stake in HP by 35.0% in the 3rd quarter. MML Investors Services LLC now owns 62,523 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $2,243,000 after purchasing an additional 16,207 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its stake in HP by 25.2% in the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 1,007,270 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $37,712,000 after purchasing an additional 202,613 shares during the period. Finally, Frank Rimerman Advisors LLC bought a new position in HP in the 2nd quarter worth about $621,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 77.53% of the company’s stock.

HP Price Performance

NYSE:HPQ opened at $32.79 on Thursday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $35.05 and a 200 day moving average of $35.40. The company has a market capitalization of $30.75 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.67, a PEG ratio of 2.95 and a beta of 1.05. HP Inc. has a 1-year low of $27.42 and a 1-year high of $39.79.

HP (NYSE:HPQ) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, November 26th. The computer maker reported $0.93 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.93. The company had revenue of $14.06 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.99 billion. HP had a negative return on equity of 253.39% and a net margin of 5.18%. HP’s quarterly revenue was up 1.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.90 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that HP Inc. will post 3.56 EPS for the current year.

HP Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 11th were given a $0.2894 dividend. This is an increase from HP’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, December 11th. This represents a $1.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.53%. HP’s payout ratio is presently 40.93%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have commented on HPQ. Bank of America downgraded HP from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $37.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their target price on HP from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Hsbc Global Res downgraded HP from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, November 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on HP from $42.00 to $41.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, November 20th. Finally, HSBC downgraded HP from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and dropped their price target for the company from $39.00 to $38.00 in a research report on Friday, November 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, HP presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $36.23.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other HP news, insider Alex Cho sold 10,298 shares of HP stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $34.32, for a total value of $353,427.36. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 64,676 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,219,680.32. The trade was a 13.74 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Stephanie Liebman sold 11,000 shares of HP stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $32.50, for a total value of $357,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 6,277 shares in the company, valued at $204,002.50. This trade represents a 63.67 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 273,035 shares of company stock worth $9,670,068 in the last quarter. 0.41% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About HP

HP Inc provides products, technologies, software, solutions, and services to individual consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses, and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health, and education sectors worldwide. It operates through Personal Systems and Printing segments. The Personal Systems segment offers commercial personal computers (PCs), consumer PCs, workstations, thin clients, commercial tablets and mobility devices, retail point-of-sale systems, displays and other related accessories, software, support, and services for the commercial and consumer markets.