Stokes Capital Advisors LLC Reduces Stock Holdings in Williams Companies, Inc. (The) $WMB

Stokes Capital Advisors LLC reduced its stake in shares of Williams Companies, Inc. (The) (NYSE:WMB) by 5.6% in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 156,811 shares of the pipeline company’s stock after selling 9,302 shares during the quarter. Williams Companies makes up 2.6% of Stokes Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 9th largest holding. Stokes Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Williams Companies were worth $11,413,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Williams Companies by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 133,963,343 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $8,052,537,000 after buying an additional 883,245 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its stake in Williams Companies by 1.9% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 67,981,106 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $4,086,344,000 after acquiring an additional 1,296,991 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its stake in Williams Companies by 15.9% during the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 48,586,299 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $3,077,942,000 after acquiring an additional 6,668,950 shares during the period. Bank of America Corp DE raised its holdings in Williams Companies by 4.8% in the 4th quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 46,053,873 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $2,768,298,000 after acquiring an additional 2,100,164 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted its position in shares of Williams Companies by 11.0% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 33,572,067 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $2,018,017,000 after acquiring an additional 3,314,851 shares during the period. 86.44% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on WMB shares. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Williams Companies from $90.00 to $98.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 20th. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce lifted their price target on shares of Williams Companies from $83.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock an “outperformer” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. Truist Financial initiated coverage on shares of Williams Companies in a report on Tuesday, March 24th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $84.00 price target on the stock. Royal Bank Of Canada raised their price objective on shares of Williams Companies from $82.00 to $83.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, May 7th. Finally, Scotiabank lifted their target price on shares of Williams Companies from $85.00 to $86.00 and gave the company a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 12th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have given a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Williams Companies currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $82.40.

Williams Companies Price Performance

Williams Companies stock opened at $77.43 on Friday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $73.68 and a 200 day simple moving average of $69.72. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.99, a current ratio of 0.83 and a quick ratio of 0.76. The company has a market capitalization of $94.59 billion, a PE ratio of 33.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.85 and a beta of 0.58. Williams Companies, Inc. has a one year low of $55.82 and a one year high of $80.07.

Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, May 4th. The pipeline company reported $0.73 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.63 by $0.10. Williams Companies had a return on equity of 18.34% and a net margin of 23.39%.The firm had revenue of $3.03 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.28 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.60 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down .6% compared to the same quarter last year. Williams Companies has set its FY 2026 guidance at 2.200-2.380 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Williams Companies, Inc. will post 2.44 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Williams Companies Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 29th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 12th will be issued a $0.525 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 12th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.7%. Williams Companies’s dividend payout ratio is presently 92.11%.

Insider Activity

In other Williams Companies news, COO Larry C. Larsen sold 12,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $76.48, for a total value of $917,760.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 98,219 shares in the company, valued at $7,511,789.12. The trade was a 10.89% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO John Dean Porter sold 50,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $75.37, for a total transaction of $3,768,500.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 196,567 shares in the company, valued at $14,815,254.79. This represents a 20.28% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 68,500 shares of company stock worth $5,177,835 in the last quarter. 0.47% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Williams Companies Profile

Williams Companies, Inc (NYSE: WMB) is a U.S.-based energy infrastructure company focused on the midstream segment of the natural gas value chain. The company develops, owns and operates assets that gather, process, transport and store natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs). Its operations support the movement of gas from production areas to end users including utilities, power generators, industrial customers and export facilities.

Williams’s product and service offering includes interstate and intrastate pipeline transmission, gas-gathering systems, processing facilities that remove impurities and separate NGLs, storage services and fractionation and transportation of NGL products.