Midwest Professional Planners LTD. Increases Position in PepsiCo, Inc. (NASDAQ:PEP)

Midwest Professional Planners LTD. boosted its holdings in shares of PepsiCo, Inc. (NASDAQ:PEP) by 229.0% in the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 8,406 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 5,851 shares during the quarter. Midwest Professional Planners LTD.’s holdings in PepsiCo were worth $1,260,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. grew its stake in shares of PepsiCo by 3.6% during the 1st quarter. Asset Management One Co. Ltd. now owns 630,906 shares of the company’s stock worth $94,598,000 after purchasing an additional 21,859 shares during the period. Ossiam increased its stake in shares of PepsiCo by 138.9% in the 4th quarter. Ossiam now owns 73,604 shares of the company’s stock valued at $11,192,000 after purchasing an additional 42,793 shares in the last quarter. OMERS ADMINISTRATION Corp increased its stake in shares of PepsiCo by 12.1% in the 4th quarter. OMERS ADMINISTRATION Corp now owns 124,797 shares of the company’s stock valued at $18,977,000 after purchasing an additional 13,461 shares in the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd increased its stake in shares of PepsiCo by 2.3% in the 1st quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 270,938 shares of the company’s stock valued at $40,624,000 after purchasing an additional 6,112 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Hutner Capital Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of PepsiCo by 14.6% during the 4th quarter. Hutner Capital Management Inc. now owns 53,783 shares of the company’s stock worth $8,178,000 after buying an additional 6,865 shares during the period. 73.07% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Evercore ISI set a $140.00 target price on PepsiCo in a research report on Thursday, April 24th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on PepsiCo from $168.00 to $153.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, April 25th. Barclays cut their price objective on PepsiCo from $143.00 to $135.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, April 28th. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and set a $148.00 target price on shares of PepsiCo in a research note on Tuesday, June 24th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on shares of PepsiCo from $150.00 to $139.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, July 10th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, fifteen have issued a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $158.19.

PepsiCo Price Performance

PepsiCo stock opened at $135.57 on Tuesday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $131.56 and its 200-day simple moving average is $141.38. The company has a market capitalization of $185.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.23 and a beta of 0.45. PepsiCo, Inc. has a 1 year low of $127.60 and a 1 year high of $180.91. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.13, a quick ratio of 0.65 and a current ratio of 0.83.

PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The company reported $1.48 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.49 by ($0.01). PepsiCo had a net margin of 10.24% and a return on equity of 58.28%. The business had revenue of $17.92 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.81 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.61 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts expect that PepsiCo, Inc. will post 8.3 earnings per share for the current year.

PepsiCo Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 30th. Investors of record on Friday, June 6th were issued a $1.4225 dividend. This represents a $5.69 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.20%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, June 6th. This is a positive change from PepsiCo’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.36. PepsiCo’s dividend payout ratio is 83.68%.

About PepsiCo

PepsiCo, Inc engages in the manufacture, marketing, distribution, and sale of various beverages and convenient foods worldwide. The company operates through seven segments: Frito-Lay North America; Quaker Foods North America; PepsiCo Beverages North America; Latin America; Europe; Africa, Middle East and South Asia; and Asia Pacific, Australia and New Zealand and China Region.