Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE:PAA) Reaches New 12-Month High After Analyst Upgrade

Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. (NYSE:PAA) hit a new 52-week high on Thursday after Barclays raised their price target on the stock from $18.00 to $19.00. Barclays currently has an underweight rating on the stock. Plains All American Pipeline traded as high as $19.66 and last traded at $19.35, with a volume of 4173325 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $19.40.

Other analysts have also issued research reports about the company. Bank of America started coverage on Plains All American Pipeline in a report on Thursday, October 17th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $18.00 price objective for the company. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Plains All American Pipeline from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $22.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Wells Fargo & Company downgraded shares of Plains All American Pipeline from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $22.00 to $20.00 in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Royal Bank of Canada restated a “sector perform” rating and set a $19.00 target price on shares of Plains All American Pipeline in a report on Friday, November 15th. Finally, Morgan Stanley downgraded Plains All American Pipeline from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $22.00 to $19.00 in a research report on Friday, October 25th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $19.92.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Plains All American Pipeline

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its holdings in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 58.9% during the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 7,221,571 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $125,439,000 after acquiring an additional 2,677,951 shares in the last quarter. Citigroup Inc. grew its stake in Plains All American Pipeline by 48.9% in the third quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 3,428,897 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $59,560,000 after purchasing an additional 1,125,386 shares in the last quarter. Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC acquired a new position in Plains All American Pipeline in the 3rd quarter worth about $11,634,000. CUSHING ASSET MANAGEMENT LP dba NXG INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT lifted its holdings in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 241.0% during the 3rd quarter. CUSHING ASSET MANAGEMENT LP dba NXG INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT now owns 449,827 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $7,813,000 after buying an additional 317,927 shares during the last quarter. Finally, ING Groep NV grew its stake in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 29.1% in the 3rd quarter. ING Groep NV now owns 1,321,937 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $22,962,000 after buying an additional 297,937 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 41.78% of the company’s stock.

Plains All American Pipeline Trading Down 0.5 %

The firm has a market cap of $14.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.91 and a beta of 1.64. The company has a 50 day moving average of $17.81 and a 200 day moving average of $17.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a current ratio of 1.01.

Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE:PAA) last released its quarterly 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. The business had revenue of $12.74 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.09 billion. Plains All American Pipeline had a net margin of 2.08% and a return on equity of 11.63%. Plains All American Pipeline’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.35 EPS. Analysts predict that Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. will post 1.56 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Plains All American Pipeline Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Friday, January 31st will be issued a $0.38 dividend. This is a positive change from Plains All American Pipeline’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.32. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 7.58%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 31st. Plains All American Pipeline’s payout ratio is 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.