Insider Selling: Baker Hughes (NASDAQ:BKR) CEO Sells 181,411 Shares of Stock

Baker Hughes Company (NASDAQ:BKR) CEO Lorenzo Simonelli sold 181,411 shares of Baker Hughes stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $63.36, for a total transaction of $11,494,200.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 784,944 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $49,734,051.84. This represents a 18.77% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Baker Hughes Stock Performance

Baker Hughes stock traded down $0.98 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $61.48. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 6,105,498 shares, compared to its average volume of 9,082,733. Baker Hughes Company has a 12-month low of $37.38 and a 12-month high of $70.41. The company has a market capitalization of $60.99 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.64, a PEG ratio of 2.25 and a beta of 0.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 1.77 and a current ratio of 2.13. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $64.16 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $58.03.

Baker Hughes (NASDAQ:BKR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 23rd. The company reported $0.58 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.49 by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $6.59 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.71 billion. Baker Hughes had a net margin of 11.17% and a return on equity of 14.17%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.51 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Baker Hughes Company will post 2.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Baker Hughes Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, May 5th were given a dividend of $0.23 per share. This represents a $0.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.5%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, May 5th. Baker Hughes’s payout ratio is 29.39%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have recently commented on BKR. Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Baker Hughes in a research report on Friday, April 24th. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Baker Hughes from $69.00 to $73.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, April 27th. HSBC boosted their price target on shares of Baker Hughes from $67.00 to $85.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, April 27th. Johnson Rice started coverage on shares of Baker Hughes in a report on Wednesday, February 25th. They set a “buy” rating and a $68.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on shares of Baker Hughes from $64.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 28th. Eighteen analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $69.14.

Institutional Trading of Baker Hughes

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Baker Hughes by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 123,890,075 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,035,924,000 after acquiring an additional 598,159 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Baker Hughes by 1.6% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 61,409,438 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,796,586,000 after purchasing an additional 937,614 shares during the last quarter. Cardano Risk Management B.V. lifted its stake in Baker Hughes by 1,005.1% in the fourth quarter. Cardano Risk Management B.V. now owns 49,353,310 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,247,550,000 after purchasing an additional 44,887,481 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors lifted its stake in Baker Hughes by 7.1% in the third quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 47,546,388 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,316,462,000 after purchasing an additional 3,153,709 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Baker Hughes by 0.8% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 26,213,363 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,189,194,000 after purchasing an additional 204,534 shares during the last quarter. 92.06% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Baker Hughes Company Profile

Baker Hughes is an energy technology company that provides a broad portfolio of products, services and digital solutions for the oil and gas and industrial markets. Its offerings span oilfield services and equipment — including drilling, evaluation, completion and production technologies — as well as turbomachinery, compressors and related process equipment used in midstream and downstream operations. The company also supplies aftermarket services, field support and integrated solutions designed to improve asset performance and uptime across the energy value chain.

The firm’s roots trace back to the merger of Baker International and Hughes Tool Company, and more recently it combined with GE’s oil and gas business in 2017 to form Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE); subsequent changes in ownership restored Baker Hughes as an independent publicly traded company.