BP (NYSE:BP) Upgraded at Scotiabank

Scotiabank upgraded shares of BP (NYSE:BP) from a sector perform rating to a sector outperform rating in a research report sent to investors on Thursday morning, MarketBeat.com reports. The firm currently has $42.00 target price on the oil and gas exploration company’s stock.

A number of other research firms also recently commented on BP. Jefferies Financial Group set a $29.00 price objective on shares of BP and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, May 19th. Morgan Stanley downgraded shares of BP from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $26.50 price objective for the company. in a research note on Monday, May 12th. Piper Sandler raised their target price on shares of BP from $32.00 to $35.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 15th. TD Cowen raised their target price on shares of BP from $34.00 to $37.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 6th. Finally, DZ Bank upgraded shares of BP from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 6th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and three have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, BP has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $36.06.

BP Price Performance

BP stock opened at $34.33 on Thursday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $31.88 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $31.22. BP has a 1 year low of $25.22 and a 1 year high of $35.54. The company has a current ratio of 1.21, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. The stock has a market cap of $90.55 billion, a PE ratio of 163.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.81 and a beta of 0.57.

BP (NYSE:BP) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 5th. The oil and gas exploration company reported $0.90 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.68 by $0.22. BP had a net margin of 0.29% and a return on equity of 9.08%. The company had revenue of $46.63 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $42.88 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.00 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 1.4% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts forecast that BP will post 3.53 EPS for the current fiscal year.

BP Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 19th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 15th will be given a dividend of $0.4942 per share. This represents a $1.98 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.8%. This is a boost from BP’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.48. The ex-dividend date is Friday, August 15th. BP’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 904.76%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BP

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its holdings in shares of BP by 486.9% during the first quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 2,787,644 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $94,195,000 after purchasing an additional 2,312,687 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its holdings in shares of BP by 4.3% during the fourth quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 940,786 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $27,810,000 after purchasing an additional 38,759 shares during the period. Kornitzer Capital Management Inc. KS increased its holdings in shares of BP by 1.6% during the second quarter. Kornitzer Capital Management Inc. KS now owns 485,409 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $14,528,000 after purchasing an additional 7,645 shares during the period. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC increased its holdings in shares of BP by 4.3% during the second quarter. Wedge Capital Management L L P NC now owns 465,269 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $13,926,000 after purchasing an additional 19,279 shares during the period. Finally, Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky increased its holdings in shares of BP by 30.2% during the first quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky now owns 444,530 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $15,020,000 after purchasing an additional 103,100 shares during the period. 11.01% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

BP Company Profile

BP p.l.c. provides carbon products and services. The company operates through Gas & Low Carbon Energy, Oil Production & Operations, and Customers & Products segments. It engages in the production of natural gas, and integrated gas and power; trading of gas; operation of onshore and offshore wind power, as well as hydrogen and carbon capture and storage facilities; trading and marketing of renewable and non-renewable power; and production of crude oil.