Empirical Finance LLC Raises Stake in HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ)

Empirical Finance LLC grew its holdings in shares of HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ) by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 53,279 shares of the computer maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 696 shares during the quarter. Empirical Finance LLC’s holdings in HP were worth $1,911,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in HPQ. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in HP by 2.6% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 120,778,246 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $3,649,919,000 after purchasing an additional 3,062,441 shares during the period. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC purchased a new position in shares of HP in the second quarter worth about $62,672,000. DME Capital Management LP increased its holdings in shares of HP by 108.7% in the second quarter. DME Capital Management LP now owns 3,373,030 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $118,124,000 after buying an additional 1,757,070 shares during the period. Primecap Management Co. CA lifted its stake in shares of HP by 6.2% in the 2nd quarter. Primecap Management Co. CA now owns 22,451,096 shares of the computer maker’s stock valued at $786,237,000 after acquiring an additional 1,319,731 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc boosted its holdings in HP by 11.3% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 10,710,450 shares of the computer maker’s stock valued at $375,079,000 after acquiring an additional 1,089,848 shares during the period. 77.53% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Enrique Lores sold 211,501 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $33.16, for a total value of $7,013,373.16. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 3 shares in the company, valued at $99.48. This represents a 100.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 0.41% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have weighed in on HPQ. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on HP from $38.00 to $42.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, August 23rd. Loop Capital lowered their price target on shares of HP from $37.00 to $35.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Morgan Stanley cut their price target on shares of HP from $37.00 to $36.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, August 29th. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of HP from $34.00 to $37.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 29th. Finally, Citigroup cut HP from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $37.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Tuesday, October 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $35.55.

HP Stock Performance

HPQ stock opened at $36.72 on Friday. HP Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $27.42 and a fifty-two week high of $39.52. The company has a market capitalization of $35.39 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.52 and a beta of 1.07. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $35.97 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $34.98.

HP (NYSE:HPQ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 28th. The computer maker reported $0.83 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.86 by ($0.03). The firm had revenue of $13.52 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $13.37 billion. HP had a negative return on equity of 266.37% and a net margin of 5.33%. HP’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.86 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that HP Inc. will post 3.39 earnings per share for the current year.

HP announced that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Wednesday, August 28th that authorizes the company to repurchase $10.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the computer maker to repurchase up to 28.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are usually an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

HP Profile

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.