Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE:PAA) Cut to Buy at StockNews.com

Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE:PAA) was downgraded by stock analysts at StockNews.com from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report issued to clients and investors on Tuesday.

A number of other research firms also recently weighed in on PAA. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on Plains All American Pipeline from $18.00 to $22.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Scotiabank initiated coverage on Plains All American Pipeline in a research report on Monday, April 8th. They set a “sector outperform” rating and a $23.00 target price for the company. Citigroup boosted their target price on Plains All American Pipeline from $16.50 to $17.50 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. UBS Group upped their price objective on Plains All American Pipeline from $21.00 to $22.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, April 12th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on Plains All American Pipeline from $14.50 to $16.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a report on Friday, April 12th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Plains All American Pipeline currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $18.96.

Plains All American Pipeline Trading Up 0.6 %

Shares of PAA opened at $17.36 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $12.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.49 and a beta of 1.59. Plains All American Pipeline has a 52-week low of $12.07 and a 52-week high of $19.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a current ratio of 0.98. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $16.95 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $15.92.

Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE:PAA) last released its earnings results on Friday, February 9th. The pipeline company reported $0.42 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.36 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $12.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $14.30 billion. Plains All American Pipeline had a return on equity of 10.48% and a net margin of 2.39%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 2.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.33 earnings per share. Analysts predict that Plains All American Pipeline will post 1.25 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Alps Advisors Inc. grew its stake in Plains All American Pipeline by 14.3% in the third quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. now owns 67,031,503 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $1,026,923,000 after acquiring an additional 8,406,683 shares during the period. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 109,124.8% during the fourth quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 46,409,609 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $545,777,000 after buying an additional 46,367,119 shares during the period. Blackstone Inc. boosted its position in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 131.6% during the third quarter. Blackstone Inc. now owns 24,267,022 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $371,771,000 after buying an additional 13,787,485 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. boosted its position in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 38.9% during the first quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 17,415,219 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $187,388,000 after buying an additional 4,880,244 shares during the period. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted its position in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 41.3% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 13,389,097 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $157,456,000 after buying an additional 3,915,370 shares during the period. 41.78% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Plains All American Pipeline

Plains All American Pipeline, L.P., through its subsidiaries, engages in the pipeline transportation, terminaling, storage, and gathering of crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGL) in the United States and Canada. The company operates through two segments, Crude Oil and NGL. The Crude Oil segment offers gathering and transporting crude oil through pipelines, gathering systems, trucks, and on barges or railcars.