Baker Hughes (NASDAQ:BKR) Now Covered by Analysts at Johnson Rice

Johnson Rice assumed coverage on shares of Baker Hughes (NASDAQ:BKR) in a research note published on Wednesday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The brokerage issued a buy rating and a $68.00 price objective on the stock.

BKR has been the topic of several other research reports. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on shares of Baker Hughes from $55.00 to $65.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 27th. Capital One Financial boosted their target price on shares of Baker Hughes from $53.00 to $59.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 27th. UBS Group raised their price target on Baker Hughes from $54.00 to $61.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 28th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Baker Hughes in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Finally, Argus raised their target price on Baker Hughes from $55.00 to $67.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 27th. Twenty research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $59.39.

Baker Hughes Stock Performance

Shares of BKR opened at $64.81 on Wednesday. Baker Hughes has a 1 year low of $33.60 and a 1 year high of $65.48. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28, a current ratio of 1.36 and a quick ratio of 1.00. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $53.69 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $49.35. The firm has a market cap of $64.05 billion, a PE ratio of 24.93, a PEG ratio of 1.74 and a beta of 0.89.

Baker Hughes (NASDAQ:BKR) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, January 26th. The company reported $0.78 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.67 by $0.11. Baker Hughes had a return on equity of 14.26% and a net margin of 9.33%.The company had revenue of $7.39 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.09 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.70 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up .3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Baker Hughes will post 2.59 EPS for the current year.

Baker Hughes Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 27th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 17th will be paid a $0.23 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 17th. This represents a $0.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.4%. Baker Hughes’s payout ratio is currently 35.38%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Rebecca L. Charlton sold 1,985 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $55.77, for a total transaction of $110,703.45. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 12,052 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $672,140.04. This trade represents a 14.14% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Maria Georgia Magno sold 19,150 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.11, for a total value of $1,131,956.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 14,588 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $862,296.68. This trade represents a 56.76% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 40,001 shares of company stock valued at $2,322,692. 0.27% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in BKR. Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Baker Hughes by 8.2% during the second quarter. Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC now owns 648,149 shares of the company’s stock valued at $24,850,000 after acquiring an additional 49,108 shares during the last quarter. Synergy Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in Baker Hughes during the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,920,000. Cibc World Market Inc. raised its position in Baker Hughes by 13.6% during the 3rd quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. now owns 829,816 shares of the company’s stock valued at $40,429,000 after purchasing an additional 99,314 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Baker Hughes by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 123,890,075 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,035,924,000 after buying an additional 598,159 shares during the period. Finally, California Public Employees Retirement System lifted its holdings in Baker Hughes by 8.7% in the 2nd quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 1,800,362 shares of the company’s stock worth $69,026,000 after buying an additional 144,381 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 92.06% of the company’s stock.

About Baker Hughes

Baker Hughes is an energy technology company that provides a broad portfolio of products, services and digital solutions for the oil and gas and industrial markets. Its offerings span oilfield services and equipment — including drilling, evaluation, completion and production technologies — as well as turbomachinery, compressors and related process equipment used in midstream and downstream operations. The company also supplies aftermarket services, field support and integrated solutions designed to improve asset performance and uptime across the energy value chain.

The firm’s roots trace back to the merger of Baker International and Hughes Tool Company, and more recently it combined with GE’s oil and gas business in 2017 to form Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE); subsequent changes in ownership restored Baker Hughes as an independent publicly traded company.