Investors Buy High Volume of Plains All American Pipeline Call Options (NASDAQ:PAA)

Plains All American Pipeline Lp (NASDAQ:PAA) was the target of unusually large options trading activity on Thursday. Traders purchased 78,076 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 726% compared to the average volume of 9,454 call options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Plains All American Pipeline

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of PAA. D.A. Davidson & CO. increased its holdings in Plains All American Pipeline by 1.6% in the 1st quarter. D.A. Davidson & CO. now owns 28,439 shares of the company’s stock worth $635,000 after purchasing an additional 453 shares in the last quarter. Summit Financial LLC grew its holdings in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 1.0% during the fourth quarter. Summit Financial LLC now owns 61,265 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,100,000 after purchasing an additional 599 shares during the last quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 40.7% during the fourth quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 2,263 shares of the company’s stock worth $41,000 after purchasing an additional 655 shares during the last quarter. Symphony Financial Services Inc. increased its stake in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. Symphony Financial Services Inc. now owns 52,496 shares of the company’s stock valued at $943,000 after buying an additional 715 shares during the period. Finally, Sippican Capital Advisors increased its stake in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 2.4% in the fourth quarter. Sippican Capital Advisors now owns 32,800 shares of the company’s stock valued at $589,000 after buying an additional 775 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 41.78% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have commented on the stock. Truist Financial boosted their price objective on shares of Plains All American Pipeline from $23.00 to $25.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 15th. Mizuho raised their target price on Plains All American Pipeline from $25.00 to $27.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, June 8th. UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Plains All American Pipeline in a research note on Tuesday, June 16th. Scotiabank boosted their price target on Plains All American Pipeline from $23.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 12th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Plains All American Pipeline from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $18.00 to $24.00 in a research report on Wednesday, June 3rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have issued a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $23.23.

Plains All American Pipeline Price Performance

Shares of Plains All American Pipeline stock traded down $0.07 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $24.82. 2,503,023 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,130,365. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $22.94 and its 200-day moving average price is $21.72. The stock has a market cap of $17.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.95, a PEG ratio of 9.69 and a beta of 0.50. Plains All American Pipeline has a 12 month low of $15.69 and a 12 month high of $25.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a current ratio of 0.94.

Plains All American Pipeline (NASDAQ:PAA) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, May 8th. The company reported $0.39 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.41 by ($0.02). Plains All American Pipeline had a net margin of 2.53% and a return on equity of 12.17%. The company had revenue of $12.47 billion during the quarter. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.39 earnings per share. Plains All American Pipeline’s revenue was up 8.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Plains All American Pipeline will post 1.55 earnings per share for the current year.

Plains All American Pipeline Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 14th. Stockholders of record on Friday, July 31st will be paid a $0.4175 dividend. This represents a $1.67 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.7%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, July 31st. Plains All American Pipeline’s dividend payout ratio is presently 127.48%.

Plains All American Pipeline Company Profile

Plains All American Pipeline (NASDAQ: PAA) is a publicly traded energy infrastructure company that provides midstream services for crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGLs). The company’s core activities include gathering, transporting, storing and marketing hydrocarbons, using an integrated network of pipelines, storage terminals, rail and truck transloading facilities. Plains also offers logistics and marketing services that connect upstream producers with refiners, traders and export markets.

Plains owns and operates a portfolio of pipeline and terminal assets concentrated in major U.S.