Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. Increases Stock Position in Mplx Lp (NYSE:MPLX)

Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. boosted its stake in shares of Mplx Lp (NYSE:MPLX) by 5.9% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 7,505 shares of the pipeline company’s stock after acquiring an additional 415 shares during the quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.’s holdings in Mplx were worth $320,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Redwood Wealth Management Group LLC purchased a new position in Mplx during the second quarter worth about $67,000. ICA Group Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Mplx by 62.8% during the second quarter. ICA Group Wealth Management LLC now owns 6,188 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $264,000 after purchasing an additional 2,387 shares in the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Mplx by 40.5% during the second quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 361,257 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $15,386,000 after purchasing an additional 104,218 shares in the last quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Mplx by 3.0% during the second quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 29,621 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $1,262,000 after purchasing an additional 866 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Parallel Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Mplx by 253.4% during the second quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 6,333 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $270,000 after purchasing an additional 4,541 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 24.25% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have recently issued reports on MPLX shares. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $47.00 price target on shares of Mplx in a research report on Wednesday, August 28th. Barclays reduced their price target on shares of Mplx from $46.00 to $45.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on shares of Mplx from $47.00 to $50.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of Mplx from $49.00 to $51.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Mplx from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Sunday, August 11th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $46.56.

Mplx Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of NYSE:MPLX opened at $44.05 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $44.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.19 and a beta of 1.37. Mplx Lp has a fifty-two week low of $34.52 and a fifty-two week high of $44.49. The company has a quick ratio of 0.95, a current ratio of 0.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.41. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $42.48 and its 200 day moving average price is $41.62.

Mplx (NYSE:MPLX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 6th. The pipeline company reported $1.15 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.98 by $0.17. The company had revenue of $3.05 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.96 billion. Mplx had a net margin of 35.95% and a return on equity of 32.68%. The firm’s revenue was up 13.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.91 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Mplx Lp will post 4.24 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Mplx Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, August 16th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 9th were paid a $0.85 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 9th. This represents a $3.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 7.72%. Mplx’s dividend payout ratio is currently 87.63%.

Mplx Profile

MPLX LP owns and operates midstream energy infrastructure and logistics assets primarily in the United States. It operates in two segments, Logistics and Storage, and Gathering and Processing. The company is involved in the gathering, processing, and transportation of natural gas; gathering, transportation, fractionation, storage, and marketing of natural gas liquids; gathering, storage, transportation, and distribution of crude oil and refined products, as well as other hydrocarbon-based products and renewables; and sale of residue gas and condensate.