Matson, Inc. $MATX Shares Sold by ProShare Advisors LLC

ProShare Advisors LLC lowered its stake in shares of Matson, Inc. (NYSE:MATX) by 1.1% in the second quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 60,171 shares of the shipping company’s stock after selling 683 shares during the quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC’s holdings in Matson were worth $6,700,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Campbell & CO Investment Adviser LLC acquired a new stake in Matson in the second quarter valued at $2,793,000. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust increased its position in shares of Matson by 19.1% in the 2nd quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust now owns 749 shares of the shipping company’s stock worth $83,000 after purchasing an additional 120 shares during the last quarter. Verity Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Matson in the 2nd quarter worth about $232,000. AdvisorShares Investments LLC raised its stake in shares of Matson by 23.2% in the 2nd quarter. AdvisorShares Investments LLC now owns 4,030 shares of the shipping company’s stock valued at $449,000 after purchasing an additional 760 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Strs Ohio lifted its position in shares of Matson by 7.4% during the second quarter. Strs Ohio now owns 10,200 shares of the shipping company’s stock worth $1,136,000 after purchasing an additional 700 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 84.76% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently weighed in on MATX shares. Stephens boosted their price objective on Matson from $160.00 to $180.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, November 5th. Zacks Research upgraded Matson from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 16th. Jefferies Financial Group reissued a “hold” rating and set a $115.00 price target on shares of Matson in a research report on Friday, August 1st. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Matson in a report on Wednesday, November 5th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Matson from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $142.00 target price for the company in a research note on Friday, November 7th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Matson presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $141.75.

Matson Trading Down 3.1%

NYSE:MATX opened at $106.74 on Friday. Matson, Inc. has a 12-month low of $86.97 and a 12-month high of $169.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a current ratio of 0.78 and a quick ratio of 0.78. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $100.69 and a 200 day simple moving average of $106.34. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.22 and a beta of 1.32.

Matson (NYSE:MATX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 4th. The shipping company reported $4.24 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.25 by $0.99. The company had revenue of $880.10 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $837.72 million. Matson had a net margin of 14.26% and a return on equity of 18.90%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $5.89 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Matson, Inc. will post 13.27 EPS for the current year.

Matson Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 4th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 6th will be paid a dividend of $0.36 per share. This represents a $1.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 6th. Matson’s payout ratio is presently 10.96%.

About Matson

Matson, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of ocean transportation and logistics services. It operates through two segments, Ocean Transportation and Logistics. The Ocean Transportation segment offers ocean freight transportation services to the domestic non-contiguous economies of Hawaii, Japan, Alaska, and Guam, as well as to other island economies in Micronesia.