ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE) Short Interest Down 50.0% in February

ONEOK, Inc. (NYSE:OKE) saw a large drop in short interest in the month of February. As of February 15th, there was short interest totalling 11,450,000 shares, a drop of 50.0% from the January 31st total of 22,900,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 3,650,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 3.1 days.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On ONEOK

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in OKE. Arkadios Wealth Advisors raised its position in shares of ONEOK by 18.8% during the 3rd quarter. Arkadios Wealth Advisors now owns 3,315 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $302,000 after acquiring an additional 525 shares in the last quarter. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. increased its position in ONEOK by 37.7% during the third quarter. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. now owns 5,776 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $526,000 after buying an additional 1,582 shares during the period. HM Payson & Co. increased its position in ONEOK by 6.3% during the third quarter. HM Payson & Co. now owns 1,764 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $161,000 after buying an additional 105 shares during the period. US Bancorp DE increased its position in ONEOK by 2.4% during the third quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 86,296 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $7,864,000 after buying an additional 2,012 shares during the period. Finally, Stephens Inc. AR increased its position in ONEOK by 1.0% during the third quarter. Stephens Inc. AR now owns 41,028 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $3,739,000 after buying an additional 403 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 69.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently commented on OKE. Truist Financial raised their target price on ONEOK from $99.00 to $107.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Barclays began coverage on ONEOK in a report on Thursday, February 6th. They set an “equal weight” rating and a $105.00 target price for the company. UBS Group raised their target price on ONEOK from $112.00 to $132.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 15th. Scotiabank began coverage on ONEOK in a report on Friday, January 10th. They set a “sector outperform” rating and a $109.00 target price for the company. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded ONEOK from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $110.00 target price for the company in a report on Monday, February 10th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, ONEOK currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $104.15.

ONEOK Stock Up 3.8 %

Shares of OKE traded up $3.65 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $100.29. The company had a trading volume of 7,100,796 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,062,820. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.59, a quick ratio of 0.59 and a current ratio of 0.81. ONEOK has a 1 year low of $74.39 and a 1 year high of $118.07. The firm has a market capitalization of $62.62 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.98, a P/E/G ratio of 3.77 and a beta of 1.70. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $100.91 and its 200-day simple moving average is $99.29.

ONEOK (NYSE:OKE) last issued its earnings results on Monday, February 24th. The utilities provider reported $1.57 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.46 by $0.11. ONEOK had a return on equity of 16.84% and a net margin of 14.05%. The business had revenue of $7 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.18 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that ONEOK will post 5.07 EPS for the current year.

ONEOK Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were given a dividend of $1.03 per share. This represents a $4.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.11%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. This is a positive change from ONEOK’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.99. ONEOK’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 79.69%.

ONEOK Company Profile

ONEOK, Inc engages in gathering, processing, fractionation, storage, transportation, and marketing of natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) in the United States. It operates through four segments: Natural Gas Gathering and Processing, Natural Gas Liquids, Natural Gas Pipelines, and Refined Products and Crude.