Short Interest in BP p.l.c. (NYSE:BP) Expands By 30.5%

BP p.l.c. (NYSE:BP) was the recipient of a large increase in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 10,490,000 shares, an increase of 30.5% from the October 15th total of 8,040,000 shares. Currently, 0.4% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 8,150,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 1.3 days.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On BP

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC lifted its stake in BP by 2.6% in the 3rd quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC now owns 646,102 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $20,281,000 after purchasing an additional 16,534 shares in the last quarter. Kornitzer Capital Management Inc. KS increased its position in BP by 5.4% during the 3rd quarter. Kornitzer Capital Management Inc. KS now owns 454,980 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $14,282,000 after purchasing an additional 23,325 shares during the period. Captrust Financial Advisors lifted its stake in shares of BP by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 440,973 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $13,842,000 after purchasing an additional 5,150 shares during the period. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in BP by 3.4% during the second quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 429,773 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $15,515,000 after acquiring an additional 13,984 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Gabelli Funds LLC grew its position in BP by 2.2% during the 2nd quarter. Gabelli Funds LLC now owns 360,050 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $12,998,000 after purchasing an additional 7,850 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 11.01% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on the company. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded BP to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 11th. StockNews.com upgraded BP from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 5th. Scotiabank cut shares of BP from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $42.00 to $36.00 in a report on Thursday, October 10th. Royal Bank of Canada downgraded BP from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 7th. Finally, Barclays upgraded BP to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 31st. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and four have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, BP has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $42.73.

BP Stock Performance

Shares of BP stock opened at $28.98 on Friday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $31.14 and a 200 day simple moving average of $34.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a current ratio of 1.22. The company has a market capitalization of $78.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.51, a PEG ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.65. BP has a 52 week low of $27.82 and a 52 week high of $40.40.

BP (NYSE:BP) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The oil and gas exploration company reported $0.83 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.78 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $47.25 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $52.05 billion. BP had a return on equity of 12.91% and a net margin of 1.36%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 11.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.15 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that BP will post 3.68 earnings per share for the current year.

BP Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 20th. Investors of record on Friday, November 8th will be paid a dividend of $0.48 per share. This represents a $1.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.63%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, November 8th. BP’s dividend payout ratio is presently 200.00%.

BP Company Profile

BP p.l.c. provides carbon products and services. The company operates through Gas & Low Carbon Energy, Oil Production & Operations, and Customers & Products segments. It engages in the production of natural gas, and integrated gas and power; trading of gas; operation of onshore and offshore wind power, as well as hydrogen and carbon capture and storage facilities; trading and marketing of renewable and non-renewable power; and production of crude oil.