Investors Buy Large 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 Tuesday. Investors purchased 20,343 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 110% compared to the typical daily volume of 9,704 call options.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of PAA. World Investment Advisors raised its holdings in Plains All American Pipeline by 7.2% in the fourth quarter. World Investment Advisors now owns 21,542 shares of the company’s stock worth $387,000 after purchasing an additional 1,442 shares during the period. Virtu Financial LLC grew its holdings in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 222.8% in the 4th quarter. Virtu Financial LLC now owns 71,679 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,287,000 after buying an additional 49,477 shares during the period. Sunbelt Securities Inc. increased its position in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 8.3% in the 4th quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. now owns 33,569 shares of the company’s stock valued at $603,000 after buying an additional 2,563 shares in the last quarter. Claris Financial LLC bought a new stake in shares of Plains All American Pipeline in the 4th quarter valued at $280,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. raised its stake in Plains All American Pipeline by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 33,508,798 shares of the company’s stock worth $601,818,000 after buying an additional 228,106 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 41.78% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Zacks Research cut shares of Plains All American Pipeline from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on shares of Plains All American Pipeline from $23.00 to $25.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, March 6th. Truist Financial assumed coverage on shares of Plains All American Pipeline in a research report on Tuesday. They set a “buy” rating and a $23.00 price objective for the company. Royal Bank Of Canada increased their target price on shares of Plains All American Pipeline from $20.00 to $21.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 17th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of Plains All American Pipeline in a research report on Monday, December 29th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have issued a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $21.85.

Plains All American Pipeline Trading Up 2.0%

Shares of Plains All American Pipeline stock opened at $22.22 on Wednesday. Plains All American Pipeline has a 1-year low of $15.57 and a 1-year high of $22.42. The company has a market capitalization of $15.68 billion, a PE ratio of 13.39, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.41 and a beta of 0.59. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.97, a current ratio of 0.96 and a quick ratio of 0.92. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $20.42.

Plains All American Pipeline (NASDAQ:PAA) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 6th. The company reported $0.17 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.50 by ($0.33). Plains All American Pipeline had a net margin of 3.21% and a return on equity of 10.76%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.42 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 12.2% compared to the same quarter last year.

Plains All American Pipeline Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 13th. Investors of record on Friday, January 30th were given a $0.4175 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 30th. This represents a $1.67 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 7.5%. This is a positive change from Plains All American Pipeline’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.38. Plains All American Pipeline’s dividend payout ratio is 100.60%.

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.