Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. Reduces Position in BP p.l.c. (NYSE:BP)

Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. cut its position in BP p.l.c. (NYSE:BP) by 17.1% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 7,970 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock after selling 1,639 shares during the quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.’s holdings in BP were worth $250,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. LRI Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of BP in the 1st quarter valued at $31,000. Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc. acquired a new position in shares of BP in the 2nd quarter valued at $33,000. Quent Capital LLC acquired a new stake in BP during the 2nd quarter worth $38,000. Independence Bank of Kentucky boosted its stake in BP by 85.7% during the 2nd quarter. Independence Bank of Kentucky now owns 1,300 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $47,000 after purchasing an additional 600 shares during the period. Finally, Indiana Trust & Investment Management CO boosted its stake in BP by 29.1% during the 2nd quarter. Indiana Trust & Investment Management CO now owns 2,034 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $73,000 after purchasing an additional 459 shares during the period. 11.01% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Redburn Atlantic cut shares of BP from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Argus upgraded shares of BP to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 1st. Scotiabank downgraded shares of BP from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $42.00 to $36.00 in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of BP from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company cut their price objective on shares of BP from $35.00 to $33.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, five have given a buy rating and four have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $42.73.

BP Stock Performance

NYSE:BP opened at $29.13 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.22, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $30.72 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $33.47. BP p.l.c. has a twelve month low of $27.82 and a twelve month high of $40.40. The company has a market capitalization of $7.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.00 and a beta of 0.65.

BP (NYSE:BP) last posted its earnings results 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. BP had a net margin of 1.36% and a return on equity of 12.91%. The firm had revenue of $47.25 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $52.05 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.15 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that BP p.l.c. will post 3.66 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

BP Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 20th. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 8th will be issued a dividend of $0.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 8th. This represents a $1.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.59%. BP’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 200.00%.

BP 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.