Ellsworth Advisors LLC Boosts Holdings in HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ)

Ellsworth Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ) by 230.1% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 130,304 shares of the computer maker’s stock after buying an additional 90,827 shares during the period. Ellsworth Advisors LLC’s holdings in HP were worth $4,252,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC purchased a new position in HP during the third quarter worth about $25,000. Wolff Wiese Magana LLC raised its stake in shares of HP by 115.1% during the 3rd quarter. Wolff Wiese Magana LLC now owns 968 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 518 shares in the last quarter. ORG Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of HP in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $37,000. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. purchased a new stake in shares of HP in the third quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new position in HP during the third quarter worth $44,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 77.53% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

HPQ has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of HP from $32.00 to $35.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 27th. TD Cowen upped their target price on shares of HP from $32.00 to $39.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 27th. Citigroup reduced their price target on shares of HP from $37.00 to $36.50 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, November 27th. Sanford C. Bernstein upped their price target on HP from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Finally, Bank of America downgraded HP from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $37.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Friday, September 27th. 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. According to MarketBeat, HP presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $36.23.

Insider Transactions at HP

In other HP news, CEO Enrique Lores sold 137,094 shares of HP stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.45, for a total transaction 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. The trade was a 60.56 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Alex Cho sold 10,298 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $34.32, for a total value of $353,427.36. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 64,676 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,219,680.32. This represents a 13.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 273,035 shares of company stock worth $9,670,068 in the last three months. Company insiders own 0.41% of the company’s stock.

HP Stock Up 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE:HPQ opened at $32.53 on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $30.51 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.58, a P/E/G ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 1.05. HP Inc. has a 52-week low of $27.42 and a 52-week high of $39.79. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $34.78 and its 200-day simple moving average is $35.35.

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

HP Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 11th were given a dividend of $0.2894 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 11th. This is an increase from HP’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. This represents a $1.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.56%. HP’s dividend payout ratio is 40.93%.

About HP

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.