Van ECK Associates Corp Decreases Holdings in Energy Transfer LP $ET

Van ECK Associates Corp trimmed its holdings in Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET) by 21.1% in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 317,813 shares of the pipeline company’s stock after selling 84,828 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp’s holdings in Energy Transfer were worth $6,077,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in ET. Brighton Jones LLC lifted its stake in Energy Transfer by 93.4% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 24,530 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $481,000 after purchasing an additional 11,844 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Energy Transfer by 62.8% during the first quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 21,041 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $391,000 after buying an additional 8,118 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Energy Transfer by 6.2% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 135,395 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $2,455,000 after buying an additional 7,901 shares during the last quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Energy Transfer by 436.5% in the second quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 4,179 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $76,000 after buying an additional 3,400 shares during the period. Finally, Guggenheim Capital LLC increased its holdings in shares of Energy Transfer by 5.6% in the second quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC now owns 50,919 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $923,000 after buying an additional 2,700 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 38.22% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Energy Transfer

In other Energy Transfer news, Director James Richard Perry bought 12,359 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 7th. The stock was bought at an average price of $20.23 per share, for a total transaction of $250,022.57. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director directly owned 208,046 shares in the company, valued at $4,208,770.58. The trade was a 6.32% increase in their ownership of the stock. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Kelcy L. Warren bought 647,968 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 19th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $21.26 per share, with a total value of $13,775,799.68. Following the acquisition, the director owned 147,901,879 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,144,393,947.54. This represents a 0.44% increase in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this purchase is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have bought 1,012,359 shares of company stock worth $21,513,543 over the last three months. Insiders own 3.28% of the company’s stock.

Energy Transfer Stock Performance

Energy Transfer stock opened at $21.52 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.16, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.45. The firm has a market cap of $74.11 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.64, a P/E/G ratio of 0.73 and a beta of 0.57. Energy Transfer LP has a 1-year low of $16.18 and a 1-year high of $21.77. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $20.37 and a 200-day moving average of $19.61.

Energy Transfer (NYSE:ET) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The pipeline company reported $0.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.38 by $0.21. The company had revenue of $34.33 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $27.71 billion. Energy Transfer had a return on equity of 11.55% and a net margin of 4.87%.Energy Transfer’s revenue was up 78.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.32 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Energy Transfer LP will post 1.7 EPS for the current year.

Energy Transfer Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, August 19th. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 7th were paid a dividend of $0.34 per share. This represents a $1.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.3%. This is a boost from Energy Transfer’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.34. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 7th. Energy Transfer’s payout ratio is presently 92.52%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently weighed in on ET. Zacks Research cut Energy Transfer from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 11th. Citigroup reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $24.00 price target (up from $23.00) on shares of Energy Transfer in a research note on Friday, August 7th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on Energy Transfer from $23.00 to $25.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 18th. Barclays restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $24.00 target price (up from $23.00) on shares of Energy Transfer in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, Scotiabank reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Energy Transfer in a research note on Tuesday, May 12th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Energy Transfer currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $24.08.

Energy Transfer Company Profile

Energy Transfer (NYSE: ET) is a Dallas-based midstream energy company that develops and operates infrastructure for the transportation, storage and processing of hydrocarbons. The company’s operations focus on moving and storing natural gas, natural gas liquids (NGLs), crude oil and refined products through an integrated network of pipelines, terminals, storage facilities and processing plants. Energy Transfer provides core midstream services such as gathering, compression, fractionation, processing, and bulk transportation to support production and downstream supply chains.

Its asset base spans an extensive network across the United States, connecting producing regions, processing centers, petrochemical hubs and coastal and inland markets.