HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ) Shares Bought by Essex Financial Services Inc.

Essex Financial Services Inc. grew its stake in shares of HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ) by 8.0% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 12,958 shares of the computer maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 961 shares during the quarter. Essex Financial Services Inc.’s holdings in HP were worth $423,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC acquired a new position in shares of HP during the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. Synergy Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of HP during the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Wolff Wiese Magana LLC increased 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 valued at $35,000 after acquiring an additional 518 shares during the last quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. acquired a new position in shares of HP during the 3rd quarter valued at about $40,000. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new position in shares of HP during the 3rd quarter valued at about $44,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 77.53% of the company’s stock.

HP Stock Up 0.8 %

NYSE HPQ opened at $33.30 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $31.23 billion, a PE ratio of 11.85, a P/E/G ratio of 2.78 and a beta of 1.05. HP Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $27.42 and a fifty-two week high of $39.79. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $33.28 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $34.86.

HP (NYSE:HPQ) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, November 26th. The computer maker reported $0.93 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.93. The company had revenue of $14.06 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $13.99 billion. HP had a negative return on equity of 253.39% and a net margin of 5.18%. The business’s revenue was up 1.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.90 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that HP Inc. will post 3.56 EPS for the current fiscal year.

HP Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 2nd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 12th will be paid a dividend of $0.2894 per share. This represents a $1.16 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.48%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 12th. HP’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 40.93%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Citigroup decreased their target price on HP from $37.00 to $36.50 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 27th. Barclays boosted their target price on HP from $32.00 to $35.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 27th. Sanford C. Bernstein boosted their target price on HP from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Hsbc Global Res cut HP from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, November 29th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on HP from $42.00 to $41.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 20th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $36.23.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Enrique Lores sold 137,094 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $36.45, for a total transaction of $4,997,076.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 89,272 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,253,964.40. This represents a 60.56 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Alex Cho sold 10,298 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the insider now owns 64,676 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,219,680.32. This trade represents a 13.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 273,035 shares of company stock worth $9,670,068. 0.41% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

HP Profile

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.