Cullen Investment Group LTD. Invests $203,000 in BP p.l.c. (NYSE:BP)

Cullen Investment Group LTD. bought a new stake in BP p.l.c. (NYSE:BP) during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund bought 6,002 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock, valued at approximately $203,000.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in BP. Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its stake in BP by 30.1% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 474,957 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $14,040,000 after buying an additional 110,019 shares during the last quarter. SVB Wealth LLC purchased a new position in shares of BP in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $588,000. ARK & TLK Investments LLC purchased a new stake in BP during the 4th quarter worth approximately $434,000. Altrius Capital Management Inc increased its stake in BP by 16.6% during the 4th quarter. Altrius Capital Management Inc now owns 272,527 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $8,056,000 after purchasing an additional 38,751 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cozad Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of BP by 92.6% during the fourth quarter. Cozad Asset Management Inc. now owns 43,818 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $1,295,000 after buying an additional 21,064 shares during the period. 11.01% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

BP has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded BP from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 20th. Piper Sandler reduced their price objective on BP from $35.00 to $32.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, May 13th. TD Cowen lowered BP from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $40.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th. Jefferies Financial Group set a $29.00 price target on shares of BP and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, May 19th. Finally, UBS Group lowered shares of BP from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 10th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, sixteen have given a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $35.28.

BP Trading Up 0.8%

Shares of BP stock opened at $29.17 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $29.32 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $30.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a current ratio of 1.25. BP p.l.c. has a fifty-two week low of $25.22 and a fifty-two week high of $37.58. The company has a market cap of $79.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 364.61, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.12 and a beta of 0.51.

BP (NYSE:BP) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 29th. The oil and gas exploration company reported $0.53 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.56 by ($0.03). BP had a return on equity of 10.96% and a net margin of 0.20%. The business had revenue of $46.91 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $40.12 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.97 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 4.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts predict that BP p.l.c. will post 3.53 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

BP Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 27th. Investors of record on Friday, May 16th will be paid a $0.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 16th. This represents a $1.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.58%. BP’s dividend payout ratio is currently -413.04%.

About BP

BP p.l.c. provides carbon products and services. The company operates through Gas & Low Carbon Energy, Oil Production & Operations, and Customers & Products segments. It engages in the production of natural gas, and integrated gas and power; trading of gas; operation of onshore and offshore wind power, as well as hydrogen and carbon capture and storage facilities; trading and marketing of renewable and non-renewable power; and production of crude oil.