Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) Price Target Raised to $47.00 at UBS Group

Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) had its price objective boosted by UBS Group from $43.00 to $47.00 in a research note released on Friday, Benzinga reports. UBS Group currently has a buy rating on the pipeline company’s stock.

WMB has been the topic of several other reports. Truist Financial raised their price target on Williams Companies from $35.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research report on Monday, March 25th. Barclays increased their price objective on Williams Companies from $37.00 to $38.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a report on Thursday. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $38.64.

Williams Companies Price Performance

WMB opened at $38.07 on Friday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $36.58 and its 200 day simple moving average is $35.54. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.57, a current ratio of 0.77 and a quick ratio of 0.73. Williams Companies has a 1 year low of $28.27 and a 1 year high of $39.76. The firm has a market cap of $46.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.53, a PEG ratio of 6.13 and a beta of 1.05.

Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 14th. The pipeline company reported $0.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.47 by $0.01. Williams Companies had a return on equity of 16.20% and a net margin of 29.22%. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.53 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that Williams Companies will post 1.8 earnings per share for the current year.

Williams Companies Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 15th were paid a $0.475 dividend. This represents a $1.90 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.99%. Williams Companies’s payout ratio is presently 72.52%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC raised its stake in Williams Companies by 96,588.4% during the fourth quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 63,423,739 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $2,086,641,000 after buying an additional 63,358,143 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in Williams Companies by 9.5% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 33,900,384 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $1,180,753,000 after buying an additional 2,948,497 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley raised its stake in Williams Companies by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 19,750,630 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $649,796,000 after buying an additional 136,216 shares during the last quarter. Royal Bank of Canada raised its stake in Williams Companies by 85.8% during the first quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 16,352,215 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $546,327,000 after buying an additional 7,551,749 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its stake in Williams Companies by 8.1% during the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 14,455,063 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $486,991,000 after buying an additional 1,089,150 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.44% of the company’s stock.

Williams Companies Company Profile

The Williams Companies, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy infrastructure company primarily in the United States. It operates through Transmission & Gulf of Mexico, Northeast G&P, West, and Gas & NGL Marketing Services segments. The Transmission & Gulf of Mexico segment comprises natural gas pipelines; Transco, Northwest pipeline, MountainWest, and related natural gas storage facilities; and natural gas gathering and processing, and crude oil production handling and transportation assets in the Gulf Coast region.