Beacon Financial Advisory LLC Boosts Stock Holdings in HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ)

Beacon Financial Advisory LLC boosted its stake in HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ) by 8.8% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 24,003 shares of the computer maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,935 shares during the quarter. Beacon Financial Advisory LLC’s holdings in HP were worth $783,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in HPQ. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of HP by 8.2% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 51,801,428 shares of the computer maker’s stock valued at $1,871,046,000 after acquiring an additional 3,923,161 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in HP by 11.1% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 24,770,491 shares of the computer maker’s stock valued at $885,877,000 after purchasing an additional 2,477,977 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its stake in shares of HP by 4.2% in the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 14,776,697 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $482,164,000 after buying an additional 592,391 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its holdings in shares of HP by 7.7% in the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 8,581,422 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $307,816,000 after buying an additional 612,675 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its position in shares of HP by 11.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 6,743,122 shares of the computer maker’s stock valued at $241,876,000 after buying an additional 678,985 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 77.53% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other HP news, CEO Enrique Lores sold 137,094 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.45, for a total value of $4,997,076.30. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 89,272 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,253,964.40. This trade represents a 60.56 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Stephanie Liebman sold 11,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $32.50, for a total value of $357,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 6,277 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $204,002.50. This trade represents a 63.67 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 273,035 shares of company stock worth $9,670,068. Corporate insiders own 0.41% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have recently issued reports on HPQ. TD Cowen raised their price objective on HP from $32.00 to $39.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 27th. Citigroup lowered their price target on HP from $37.00 to $36.50 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, November 27th. HSBC cut shares of HP from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $39.00 to $38.00 in a research report on Friday, November 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on shares of HP from $42.00 to $41.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 20th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein upped their price target on shares of HP from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $36.23.

HP Price Performance

Shares of NYSE HPQ opened at $32.55 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $30.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.58, a PEG ratio of 2.77 and a beta of 1.05. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $33.64 and its 200-day simple moving average is $35.04. HP Inc. has a 12 month low of $27.42 and a 12 month high of $39.79.

HP (NYSE:HPQ) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, November 26th. The computer maker reported $0.93 EPS for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.93. HP had a negative return on equity of 253.39% and a net margin of 5.18%. The firm had revenue of $14.06 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $13.99 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.90 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 1.7% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts anticipate that HP Inc. will post 3.56 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

HP Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, March 12th will be issued a $0.2894 dividend. This represents a $1.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.56%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 12th. HP’s payout ratio is 41.28%.

HP Company 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.