Stock Traders Buy High Volume of Call Options on Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE:EPD)

Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE:EPD) saw unusually large options trading activity on Tuesday. Investors bought 21,164 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 63% compared to the average daily volume of 12,974 call options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

EPD has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Enterprise Products Partners from $38.00 to $39.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 5th. Scotiabank reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and set a $40.00 price target (up from $39.00) on shares of Enterprise Products Partners in a research note on Tuesday, May 12th. Citigroup reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $44.00 price objective (up from $39.00) on shares of Enterprise Products Partners in a report on Friday, May 1st. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on shares of Enterprise Products Partners from $41.00 to $42.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Enterprise Products Partners from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $39.67.

Enterprise Products Partners Stock Performance

Enterprise Products Partners stock traded down $0.31 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $36.20. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,851,908 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,447,149. The firm has a market cap of $78.24 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.37, a PEG ratio of 1.33 and a beta of 0.49. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $37.98 and a 200-day moving average price of $35.72. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.03. Enterprise Products Partners has a twelve month low of $30.01 and a twelve month high of $40.17.

Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE:EPD) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, April 27th. The oil and gas producer reported $0.68 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.71 by ($0.03). The business had revenue of $14.39 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.62 billion. Enterprise Products Partners had a return on equity of 19.53% and a net margin of 11.45%.The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 6.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.64 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Enterprise Products Partners will post 2.98 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Enterprise Products Partners Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 30th were issued a dividend of $0.55 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 30th. This represents a $2.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.1%. Enterprise Products Partners’s payout ratio is 81.48%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Aj Teague acquired 2,665 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 20th. The stock was bought at an average price of $37.55 per share, for a total transaction of $100,070.75. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 77,576 shares in the company, valued at $2,912,978.80. This represents a 3.56% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders own 32.60% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Enterprise Products Partners

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Parallel Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Enterprise Products Partners by 0.7% during the first quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 47,882 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock valued at $1,812,000 after acquiring an additional 352 shares during the period. NewEdge Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Enterprise Products Partners by 4.9% during the first quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 396,788 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock valued at $15,014,000 after purchasing an additional 18,663 shares in the last quarter. Blue Edge Capital LLC bought a new stake in shares of Enterprise Products Partners during the first quarter valued at about $314,000. Lavelle Capital LP bought a new stake in shares of Enterprise Products Partners during the first quarter valued at about $960,000. Finally, Allen Capital Group LLC raised its stake in shares of Enterprise Products Partners by 1.5% during the first quarter. Allen Capital Group LLC now owns 25,092 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock valued at $949,000 after purchasing an additional 372 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 26.07% of the company’s stock.

About Enterprise Products Partners

Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE: EPD) is a Houston-based master limited partnership that provides midstream energy services across North America. The company owns and operates an extensive network of pipelines, storage facilities, processing plants and export terminals that transport and handle natural gas, natural gas liquids (NGLs), crude oil and refined and petrochemical products. Its core activities include gathering and transportation, fractionation of NGLs, natural gas processing, crude oil and condensate pipelines, and marine and terminal services that enable domestic distribution and exports.

Enterprise serves a diverse set of customers including producers, refiners, petrochemical companies, marketers and end users.