Traders Purchase Large Volume of BP Call Options (NYSE:BP)

BP p.l.c. (NYSE:BP) was the target of some unusual options trading on Tuesday. Traders purchased 41,181 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 48% compared to the average daily volume of 27,823 call options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BP

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC raised its position in BP by 2.2% in the 4th quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC now owns 660,538 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $19,526,000 after purchasing an additional 14,436 shares in the last quarter. Kornitzer Capital Management Inc. KS raised its holdings in BP by 5.4% in the third 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 acquiring an additional 23,325 shares in the last quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors grew its holdings in BP by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 440,973 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $13,842,000 after acquiring an additional 5,150 shares in the last quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky increased its position in shares of BP by 3.8% in the 3rd quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky now owns 343,880 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $10,795,000 after purchasing an additional 12,700 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Altrius Capital Management Inc raised its holdings in shares of BP by 9.9% in the 3rd quarter. Altrius Capital Management Inc now owns 233,776 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $7,338,000 after purchasing an additional 20,976 shares in the last quarter. 11.01% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the company. Piper Sandler reduced their price objective on BP from $36.00 to $32.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price target on shares of BP from $31.00 to $30.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 15th. BNP Paribas cut shares of BP from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on shares of BP from $34.70 to $31.80 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. Finally, Raymond James raised their price target on shares of BP from $36.00 to $37.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, January 17th. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and four have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, BP presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $38.76.

BP Trading Down 0.2 %

BP opened at $31.11 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.94, a current ratio of 1.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66. The firm has a market cap of $83.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.75, a P/E/G ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 0.64. BP has a 52 week low of $27.82 and a 52 week high of $40.40. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $30.00 and a 200-day simple moving average of $31.55.

BP (NYSE:BP) last released 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 return on equity of 12.91% and a net margin of 1.36%. The company had revenue of $47.25 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $52.05 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.15 EPS. BP’s revenue was down 11.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts expect that BP will post 3.35 earnings per share for the current year.

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.