J.W. Cole Advisors Inc. Invests $335,000 in HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ)

J.W. Cole Advisors Inc. bought a new position in HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 11,141 shares of the computer maker’s stock, valued at approximately $335,000.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of HP by 12.3% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 117,509,674 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $3,019,999,000 after acquiring an additional 12,883,347 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp grew its position in shares of HP by 6.2% in the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 10,131,560 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $260,381,000 after acquiring an additional 589,775 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its position in shares of HP by 4,180.9% in the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 9,516,510 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $286,352,000 after acquiring an additional 9,294,209 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. grew its position in shares of HP by 13.8% in the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 8,220,098 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $211,257,000 after acquiring an additional 995,132 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Qube Research & Technologies Ltd boosted its position in HP by 145.9% during the 3rd quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd now owns 6,090,872 shares of the computer maker’s stock valued at $156,535,000 after purchasing an additional 3,613,742 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 77.53% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the company. StockNews.com lowered HP from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, March 1st. HSBC upgraded HP from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $30.00 to $33.00 in a research report on Wednesday, February 14th. Finally, Barclays boosted their price objective on HP from $22.00 to $24.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 29th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $33.11.

HP Stock Performance

Shares of HPQ stock opened at $28.10 on Thursday. HP Inc. has a 1 year low of $25.22 and a 1 year high of $33.90. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $29.30 and a two-hundred day moving average of $28.84. The firm has a market capitalization of $27.56 billion, a PE ratio of 8.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.32 and a beta of 1.05.

HP (NYSE:HPQ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The computer maker reported $0.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.81. HP had a negative return on equity of 181.02% and a net margin of 6.45%. The company had revenue of $13.19 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.56 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.75 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 4.4% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts predict that HP Inc. will post 3.42 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

HP Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 3rd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 13th were paid a $0.2756 dividend. This represents a $1.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.92%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, March 12th. HP’s dividend payout ratio is presently 32.16%.

Insider Transactions at HP

In other news, Director Robert R. Bennett sold 67,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $30.01, for a total value of $2,010,670.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 60,216 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,807,082.16. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, Director Robert R. Bennett sold 67,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $30.01, for a total value of $2,010,670.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 60,216 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,807,082.16. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Stephanie Liebman sold 8,708 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $30.93, for a total value of $269,338.44. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 116,723 shares of company stock valued at $3,479,287. Corporate insiders own 0.41% of the company’s stock.

HP Profile

HP Inc provides products, technologies, software, solutions, and services to individual consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses, and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health, and education sectors worldwide. It operates through Personal Systems and Printing segments. The Personal Systems segment offers commercial personal computers (PCs), consumer PCs, workstations, thin clients, commercial tablets and mobility devices, retail point-of-sale systems, displays and other related accessories, software, support, and services for the commercial and consumer markets.