Investors Purchase High Volume of Call Options on Transocean (NYSE:RIG)

Transocean Ltd. (NYSE:RIG) was the recipient of some unusual options trading activity on Monday. Investors acquired 77,238 call options on the company. This is an increase of 56% compared to the typical daily volume of 49,581 call options.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Transocean news, EVP Roderick James Mackenzie sold 78,370 shares of Transocean stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.36, for a total transaction of $498,433.20. Following the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 268,025 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,704,639. The trade was a 22.62% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 9.70% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Transocean

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Fruth Investment Management raised its holdings in shares of Transocean by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. Fruth Investment Management now owns 90,378 shares of the offshore drilling services provider’s stock worth $373,000 after purchasing an additional 2,500 shares during the period. Annandale Capital LLC raised its holdings in shares of Transocean by 17.7% during the fourth quarter. Annandale Capital LLC now owns 16,600 shares of the offshore drilling services provider’s stock worth $69,000 after purchasing an additional 2,500 shares during the period. Jones Financial Companies Lllp raised its holdings in shares of Transocean by 9.0% during the third quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 35,604 shares of the offshore drilling services provider’s stock worth $114,000 after purchasing an additional 2,932 shares during the period. J.W. Cole Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Transocean by 3.5% during the third quarter. J.W. Cole Advisors Inc. now owns 100,634 shares of the offshore drilling services provider’s stock worth $314,000 after purchasing an additional 3,367 shares during the period. Finally, Townsend & Associates Inc raised its holdings in shares of Transocean by 16.0% during the fourth quarter. Townsend & Associates Inc now owns 29,000 shares of the offshore drilling services provider’s stock worth $126,000 after purchasing an additional 4,000 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 67.73% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have weighed in on RIG shares. Fearnley Fonds cut shares of Transocean from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 10th. Barclays raised shares of Transocean from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $6.00 to $8.00 in a research report on Thursday, May 7th. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of Transocean from $5.00 to $7.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 15th. Clarkson Capital cut shares of Transocean from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 19th. Finally, TD Cowen boosted their target price on shares of Transocean from $5.50 to $6.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Transocean presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $6.96.

Transocean Stock Up 7.7%

Shares of NYSE:RIG traded up $0.54 during midday trading on Monday, reaching $7.58. The company had a trading volume of 61,510,541 shares, compared to its average volume of 42,290,496. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60, a current ratio of 1.54 and a quick ratio of 1.20. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $6.44 and its 200-day moving average price is $5.29. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.47 billion, a P/E ratio of -2.54 and a beta of 1.34. Transocean has a one year low of $2.34 and a one year high of $7.64.

Transocean (NYSE:RIG) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, May 4th. The offshore drilling services provider reported ($0.03) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.07 by ($0.10). The company had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.02 billion. Transocean had a positive return on equity of 0.88% and a negative net margin of 66.79%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 19.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted ($0.10) EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Transocean will post 0.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Transocean Company Profile

Transocean Ltd. is a leading international provider of offshore contract drilling services for the oil and gas industry. The company specializes in the operation of mobile drilling units, including ultra-deepwater drillships, semisubmersible rigs and high-specification jackup rigs. Transocean’s fleet is designed to meet complex drilling requirements, from ultra-deepwater well construction to shelf exploration and development projects.

The company’s core services encompass the full spectrum of offshore drilling operations, including project and engineering management, marine operations, drilling supervision, and maintenance support.