Janney Montgomery Scott LLC Grows Stock Position in Thomson Reuters Co. (NYSE:TRI)

Janney Montgomery Scott LLC raised its holdings in Thomson Reuters Co. (NYSE:TRI) (TSE:TRI) by 5.4% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 7,146 shares of the business services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 369 shares during the quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC’s holdings in Thomson Reuters were worth $1,219,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Thomson Reuters by 0.7% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,739,858 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $894,442,000 after purchasing an additional 41,680 shares during the period. TD Asset Management Inc increased its holdings in shares of Thomson Reuters by 0.7% in the second quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 4,074,256 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $686,640,000 after purchasing an additional 26,483 shares during the period. Clearbridge Investments LLC increased its holdings in shares of Thomson Reuters by 9.4% in the second quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 1,458,700 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $245,893,000 after purchasing an additional 125,167 shares during the period. Cibc World Market Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Thomson Reuters by 26.3% in the second quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. now owns 1,325,695 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $223,525,000 after purchasing an additional 276,206 shares during the period. Finally, CIBC Asset Management Inc increased its holdings in shares of Thomson Reuters by 21.8% in the second quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 776,976 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $130,890,000 after purchasing an additional 138,971 shares during the period. 17.31% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on TRI. StockNews.com raised Thomson Reuters from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on Thomson Reuters from $171.00 to $173.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on Thomson Reuters from $163.00 to $164.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, August 2nd. Scotiabank raised their target price on Thomson Reuters from $182.00 to $187.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 6th. Finally, National Bank Financial raised Thomson Reuters from a “sector perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, September 9th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Thomson Reuters currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $176.33.

Thomson Reuters Stock Performance

NYSE TRI opened at $161.69 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $72.74 billion, a PE ratio of 32.01, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.70 and a beta of 0.73. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $168.53 and its 200-day simple moving average is $167.13. Thomson Reuters Co. has a 1-year low of $133.26 and a 1-year high of $176.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 0.94 and a quick ratio of 0.94.

Thomson Reuters (NYSE:TRI) (TSE:TRI) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, November 5th. The business services provider reported $0.80 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.77 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $1.72 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.71 billion. Thomson Reuters had a return on equity of 14.85% and a net margin of 32.12%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 8.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.82 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Thomson Reuters Co. will post 3.69 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Thomson Reuters Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 10th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be given a $0.54 dividend. This represents a $2.16 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.34%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 21st. This is an increase from Thomson Reuters’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. Thomson Reuters’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 42.52%.

About Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters Corporation engages in the provision of business information services in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates in five segments: Legal Professionals, Corporates, Tax & Accounting Professionals, Reuters News, and Global Print. The Legal Professionals segment offers research and workflow products focusing on legal research and integrated legal workflow solutions that combine content, tools, and analytics to law firms and governments.