Legacy Financial Strategies LLC Acquires New Stake in The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE:WMB)

Legacy Financial Strategies LLC acquired a new stake in shares of The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE:WMB) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor acquired 6,793 shares of the pipeline company’s stock, valued at approximately $310,000.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Blackstone Inc. increased its position in Williams Companies by 109.1% in the first quarter. Blackstone Inc. now owns 6,466,660 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $252,006,000 after buying an additional 3,373,800 shares in the last quarter. Jennison Associates LLC increased its position in Williams Companies by 40.1% in the first quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 5,753,223 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $224,203,000 after buying an additional 1,647,469 shares in the last quarter. Castle Hook Partners LP purchased a new stake in Williams Companies in the first quarter worth about $57,220,000. Clearbridge Investments LLC increased its position in Williams Companies by 5.9% in the first quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 20,983,727 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $817,736,000 after buying an additional 1,175,628 shares in the last quarter. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. increased its position in Williams Companies by 20.1% in the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 6,117,298 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $259,985,000 after buying an additional 1,024,158 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.44% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Williams Companies news, SVP Terrance Lane Wilson sold 2,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.29, for a total transaction of $90,580.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 304,200 shares in the company, valued at $13,777,218. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 0.44% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

WMB has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Seaport Res Ptn lowered Williams Companies from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 30th. Morgan Stanley raised Williams Companies from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $52.00 to $58.00 in a research note on Friday, October 4th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on Williams Companies from $47.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Citigroup upped their price objective on Williams Companies from $45.00 to $52.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 3rd. Finally, Barclays upped their price objective on Williams Companies from $42.00 to $46.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Williams Companies presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $47.46.

Williams Companies Trading Up 1.6 %

Shares of NYSE:WMB traded up $0.82 during trading on Friday, hitting $52.36. The company had a trading volume of 5,837,646 shares, compared to its average volume of 6,280,183. The stock has a market cap of $63.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 7.10 and a beta of 1.05. The Williams Companies, Inc. has a one year low of $32.65 and a one year high of $52.44. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $46.29 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $42.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.64, a current ratio of 0.45 and a quick ratio of 0.39.

Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, August 5th. The pipeline company reported $0.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.38 by $0.05. Williams Companies had a return on equity of 16.17% and a net margin of 27.11%. The business had revenue of $2.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.46 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.42 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that The Williams Companies, Inc. will post 1.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Williams Companies Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 27th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 13th were issued a dividend of $0.475 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, September 13th. This represents a $1.90 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.63%. Williams Companies’s payout ratio is currently 79.83%.

Williams Companies Company Profile

The Williams Companies, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy infrastructure company primarily in the United States. It operates through Transmission & Gulf of Mexico, Northeast G&P, West, and Gas & NGL Marketing Services segments. The Transmission & Gulf of Mexico segment comprises natural gas pipelines; Transco, Northwest pipeline, MountainWest, and related natural gas storage facilities; and natural gas gathering and processing, and crude oil production handling and transportation assets in the Gulf Coast region.