Timothy Matusch Sells 1,103 Shares of Warner Music Group Corp. (NASDAQ:WMG) Stock

Warner Music Group Corp. (NASDAQ:WMG) EVP Timothy Matusch sold 1,103 shares of Warner Music Group stock in a transaction on Friday, February 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.49, for a total value of $40,248.47. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 88,649 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,234,802.01. The trade was a 1.23 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website.

Warner Music Group Trading Down 1.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ:WMG traded down $0.40 during midday trading on Tuesday, reaching $35.90. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,531,119 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,999,631. The firm has a market capitalization of $18.60 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.63, a PEG ratio of 0.94 and a beta of 1.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.67, a quick ratio of 0.65 and a current ratio of 0.69. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $31.54 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $30.99. Warner Music Group Corp. has a fifty-two week low of $27.06 and a fifty-two week high of $36.64.

Warner Music Group (NASDAQ:WMG) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The company reported $0.45 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.34 by $0.11. Warner Music Group had a return on equity of 79.01% and a net margin of 8.07%. As a group, analysts forecast that Warner Music Group Corp. will post 1.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Warner Music Group Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 4th. Investors of record on Monday, February 24th will be paid a dividend of $0.18 per share. This represents a $0.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.01%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, February 24th. Warner Music Group’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 73.47%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Guggenheim restated a “buy” rating and set a $40.00 price objective on shares of Warner Music Group in a research report on Friday, February 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on Warner Music Group from $41.00 to $40.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Citigroup upgraded Warner Music Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $34.00 to $42.00 in a research report on Friday. Evercore ISI reduced their price objective on Warner Music Group from $36.00 to $35.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, UBS Group reduced their price objective on Warner Music Group from $43.00 to $41.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $35.81.

Institutional Trading of Warner Music Group

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC increased its holdings in Warner Music Group by 43.5% during the 4th quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC now owns 7,920,342 shares of the company’s stock worth $245,531,000 after purchasing an additional 2,400,500 shares in the last quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP bought a new stake in Warner Music Group during the 4th quarter worth approximately $2,613,000. Two Sigma Investments LP bought a new position in shares of Warner Music Group in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $5,545,000. State of Wyoming bought a new position in shares of Warner Music Group in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $47,000. Finally, ProShare Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Warner Music Group in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $205,000. 96.88% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Warner Music Group Company Profile

Warner Music Group Corp. operates as a music entertainment company in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and internationally. It operates through Recorded Music and Music Publishing segments. The Recorded Music segment is involved in the discovery and development of recording artists, as well as related marketing, promotion, distribution, sale, and licensing of music created by such recording artists; markets its music catalog through compilations and reissuances of previously released music and video titles, as well as previously unreleased materials; and conducts its operation primarily through a collection of record labels, such as Warner Records and Atlantic Records, as well as Asylum, Big Beat, Canvasback, East West, Erato, FFRR, Fueled by Ramen, Nonesuch, Parlophone, Reprise, Roadrunner, Sire, Spinnin’ Records, Warner Classics, and Warner Music Nashville.