New Mexico Educational Retirement Board Decreases Stock Holdings in Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST)

New Mexico Educational Retirement Board lessened its stake in shares of Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST) by 75.3% during the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 16,900 shares of the company’s stock after selling 51,500 shares during the quarter. New Mexico Educational Retirement Board’s holdings in Vistra were worth $1,453,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in VST. Castle Hook Partners LP lifted its position in Vistra by 470.0% during the first quarter. Castle Hook Partners LP now owns 3,769,842 shares of the company’s stock valued at $262,569,000 after purchasing an additional 3,108,511 shares during the period. TD Asset Management Inc grew its position in Vistra by 9,668.5% in the 1st quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 2,940,113 shares of the company’s stock worth $204,779,000 after purchasing an additional 2,910,015 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Vistra during the 4th quarter valued at $77,523,000. Electron Capital Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Vistra by 468.2% during the 4th quarter. Electron Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,128,930 shares of the company’s stock valued at $82,006,000 after buying an additional 1,754,223 shares during the period. Finally, Third Point LLC boosted its stake in shares of Vistra by 27.6% in the 4th quarter. Third Point LLC now owns 4,600,000 shares of the company’s stock worth $177,192,000 after buying an additional 995,748 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.88% of the company’s stock.

Vistra Trading Down 2.8 %

Shares of Vistra stock opened at $73.70 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.89, a current ratio of 0.98 and a quick ratio of 0.88. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.32 billion, a PE ratio of 45.22 and a beta of 1.08. Vistra Corp. has a 1-year low of $31.16 and a 1-year high of $107.24. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $80.91 and its 200-day simple moving average is $78.27.

Vistra (NYSE:VST) last released its earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The company reported $0.90 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.59 by ($0.69). The company had revenue of $3.85 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.04 billion. Vistra had a net margin of 4.61% and a return on equity of 21.05%. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.03 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Vistra Corp. will post 4.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Vistra Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 30th. Investors of record on Friday, September 20th will be paid a dividend of $0.2195 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, September 20th. This is an increase from Vistra’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.22. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.19%. Vistra’s payout ratio is 53.37%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on Vistra from $109.00 to $110.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, August 23rd. Six analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $87.83.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Lisa Crutchfield purchased 335 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, June 10th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $89.46 per share, with a total value of $29,969.10. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now directly owns 32,186 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,879,359.56. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 1.42% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

About Vistra

Vistra Corp., together with its subsidiaries, operates as an integrated retail electricity and power generation company. The company operates through six segments: Retail, Texas, East, West, Sunset, and Asset Closure. It retails electricity and natural gas to residential, commercial, and industrial customers across states in the United States and the District of Columbia.