Plains All American Pipeline Target of Unusually High Options Trading (NYSE:PAA)

Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. (NYSE:PAA) was the recipient of some unusual options trading on Thursday. Investors acquired 60,729 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 1,266% compared to the average daily volume of 4,446 call options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Plains All American Pipeline

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Plains All American Pipeline by 5.4% in the fourth quarter. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC now owns 17,195 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $294,000 after acquiring an additional 885 shares in the last quarter. Naples Global Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Plains All American Pipeline in the fourth quarter worth about $188,000. Van ECK Associates Corp increased its holdings in Plains All American Pipeline by 56.8% in the 4th quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 139,047 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $2,375,000 after buying an additional 50,391 shares during the period. Clarus Group Inc. increased its holdings in Plains All American Pipeline by 30.5% in the 4th quarter. Clarus Group Inc. now owns 91,527 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $1,563,000 after buying an additional 21,400 shares during the period. Finally, Wealthstar Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Plains All American Pipeline in the 4th quarter valued at $606,000. 41.78% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on PAA shares. Raymond James upped their price target on Plains All American Pipeline from $23.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Bank of America initiated coverage on Plains All American Pipeline in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $18.00 price objective on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company cut shares of Plains All American Pipeline from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and lowered their target price for the company from $22.00 to $20.00 in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated a “sector perform” rating and set a $19.00 target price on shares of Plains All American Pipeline in a research note on Friday, November 15th. Finally, Barclays boosted their target price on shares of Plains All American Pipeline from $18.00 to $19.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 16th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Plains All American Pipeline has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $20.21.

Plains All American Pipeline Trading Down 0.1 %

Shares of NYSE PAA traded down $0.03 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $20.62. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,161,077 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,184,481. Plains All American Pipeline has a 12-month low of $15.02 and a 12-month high of $21.00. The business’s 50 day moving average is $18.32 and its two-hundred day moving average is $17.84. The firm has a market cap of $14.51 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.39 and a beta of 1.64. The company has a current ratio of 1.01, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64.

Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE:PAA) last issued its earnings results on Friday, November 8th. The pipeline company reported $0.37 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.31 by $0.06. Plains All American Pipeline had a return on equity of 11.63% and a net margin of 2.08%. The business had revenue of $12.74 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.09 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.35 EPS. Plains All American Pipeline’s revenue was up 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Plains All American Pipeline will post 1.17 EPS for the current year.

Plains All American Pipeline Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 31st will be issued a $0.38 dividend. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 7.37%. This is a boost from Plains All American Pipeline’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.32. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 31st. Plains All American Pipeline’s dividend payout ratio is currently 113.39%.

Plains All American Pipeline Company Profile

Plains All American Pipeline, L.P., through its subsidiaries, engages in the pipeline transportation, terminaling, storage, and gathering of crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGL) in the United States and Canada. The company operates through two segments, Crude Oil and NGL. The Crude Oil segment offers gathering and transporting crude oil through pipelines, gathering systems, trucks, and on barges or railcars.