Archrock, Inc. (NYSE:AROC) Receives Average Rating of “Buy” from Brokerages

Archrock, Inc. (NYSE:AROC) has been given an average recommendation of “Buy” by the eleven ratings firms that are covering the company, MarketBeat reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold recommendation, nine have issued a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year price target among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $36.8571.

Several research firms have recently commented on AROC. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Archrock from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday. Zacks Research raised Archrock from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Stifel Nicolaus upped their target price on Archrock from $31.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Archrock from $30.00 to $39.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 27th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Archrock in a research note on Wednesday, January 21st.

Archrock Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:AROC opened at $36.81 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.54, a quick ratio of 0.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.62. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $29.44 and a 200-day moving average price of $26.43. The company has a market cap of $6.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.53 and a beta of 0.87. Archrock has a 12 month low of $20.12 and a 12 month high of $36.94.

Archrock (NYSE:AROC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 24th. The energy company reported $0.69 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.40 by $0.29. Archrock had a return on equity of 23.57% and a net margin of 21.63%.The company had revenue of $377.07 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $378.04 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.34 EPS. Archrock’s revenue was up 15.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Archrock will post 1.09 EPS for the current year.

Archrock Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, February 18th. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 10th were paid a $0.22 dividend. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.4%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 10th. This is a positive change from Archrock’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. Archrock’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 48.09%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Archrock

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in AROC. Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. bought a new position in Archrock during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $61,144,000. Neuberger Berman Group LLC increased its holdings in shares of Archrock by 9,756.7% during the fourth quarter. Neuberger Berman Group LLC now owns 1,293,002 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $33,644,000 after acquiring an additional 1,279,884 shares in the last quarter. Stephens Investment Management Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Archrock in the 4th quarter worth about $32,904,000. HITE Hedge Asset Management LLC bought a new position in Archrock in the 3rd quarter worth about $19,603,000. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Archrock during the 4th quarter valued at about $18,721,000. Institutional investors own 95.45% of the company’s stock.

Archrock Company Profile

Archrock, Inc is a Houston‐based provider of natural gas compression services and equipment to the oil and gas industry in North America. Founded in 2004, the company supplies both short‐term rentals and long‐term contracts for compression solutions, serving upstream and midstream producers. Archrock’s offerings include engineered compression systems, aftermarket parts, maintenance and field services designed to optimize wellhead and pipeline operations.

The company’s core business activities focus on the design, manufacture, rental and sale of gas compression equipment.