Traders Buy High Volume of B. Riley Financial Call Options (NASDAQ:RILY)

B. Riley Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ:RILY) was the recipient of unusually large options trading activity on Thursday. Traders purchased 21,615 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 46% compared to the typical volume of 14,813 call options.

Institutional Trading of B. Riley Financial

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. XTX Topco Ltd raised its stake in shares of B. Riley Financial by 4.2% during the second quarter. XTX Topco Ltd now owns 62,517 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $186,000 after purchasing an additional 2,531 shares during the period. Russell Investments Group Ltd. lifted its position in shares of B. Riley Financial by 144.9% during the second quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 14,504 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $43,000 after purchasing an additional 8,582 shares in the last quarter. Jump Financial LLC purchased a new position in shares of B. Riley Financial in the second quarter valued at $45,000. Federated Hermes Inc. boosted its stake in shares of B. Riley Financial by 78.0% in the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 179,960 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $534,000 after purchasing an additional 78,847 shares during the period. Finally, Engineers Gate Manager LP grew its holdings in B. Riley Financial by 70.0% during the 2nd quarter. Engineers Gate Manager LP now owns 17,106 shares of the asset manager’s stock valued at $51,000 after purchasing an additional 7,044 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 50.20% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently commented on RILY shares. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of B. Riley Financial from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, March 21st. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (e+)” rating on shares of B. Riley Financial in a research note on Monday, December 29th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Sell rating, Based on data from MarketBeat, B. Riley Financial presently has an average rating of “Sell”.

B. Riley Financial Price Performance

Shares of RILY opened at $7.15 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $7.62 and its two-hundred day moving average is $6.17. The stock has a market cap of $223.22 million, a PE ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.27. B. Riley Financial has a 12 month low of $2.67 and a 12 month high of $10.97.

B. Riley Financial (NASDAQ:RILY) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 14th. The asset manager reported $2.91 earnings per share for the quarter. The company had revenue of $75.70 million during the quarter.

B. Riley Financial Company Profile

B. Riley Financial, Inc, headquartered in Los Angeles, California, is a diversified financial services company offering a broad range of advisory and investment solutions to individual, corporate and institutional clients. Since its founding in 1997 by Bryant E. Riley, the firm has expanded its capabilities across two primary segments: financial solutions and operations solutions. Its financial solutions segment provides investment banking services, equity research, merger and acquisition advisory, corporate finance, restructuring advisory and private capital solutions.

In addition to traditional investment banking, B.