Patton Albertson Miller Group LLC Acquires 8,962 Shares of HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ)

Patton Albertson Miller Group LLC grew its holdings in shares of HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ) by 5.0% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 188,368 shares of the computer maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 8,962 shares during the period. Patton Albertson Miller Group LLC’s holdings in HP were worth $6,146,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of HPQ. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC acquired a new position in HP during the 3rd quarter worth about $25,000. Wolff Wiese Magana LLC boosted its position in HP by 115.1% during the third quarter. Wolff Wiese Magana LLC now owns 968 shares of the computer maker’s stock valued at $35,000 after acquiring an additional 518 shares during the last quarter. ORG Wealth Partners LLC bought a new stake in HP in the third quarter worth approximately $37,000. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. bought a new position in HP during the third quarter worth $40,000. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new position in shares of HP during the third quarter valued at about $44,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 77.53% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Citigroup reduced their price target on shares of HP from $37.00 to $36.50 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, November 27th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their price target on shares of HP from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on HP from $42.00 to $41.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, November 20th. HSBC lowered shares of HP from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and reduced their price target for the company from $39.00 to $38.00 in a research report on Friday, November 29th. Finally, Hsbc Global Res downgraded shares of HP from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, November 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, HP currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $36.23.

Insider Activity

In other HP news, insider Stephanie Liebman sold 11,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $32.50, for a total transaction of $357,500.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 6,277 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $204,002.50. This trade represents a 63.67 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Alex Cho sold 10,298 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $34.32, for a total value of $353,427.36. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 64,676 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,219,680.32. This trade represents a 13.74 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 273,035 shares of company stock valued at $9,670,068 over the last three months. Insiders own 0.41% of the company’s stock.

HP Price Performance

NYSE:HPQ opened at $32.73 on Friday. HP Inc. has a one year low of $27.42 and a one year high of $39.79. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $34.38 and its 200 day simple moving average is $35.27. The firm has a market capitalization of $30.69 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.65, a PEG ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 1.05.

HP (NYSE:HPQ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 26th. The computer maker reported $0.93 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.93. HP had a negative return on equity of 253.39% and a net margin of 5.18%. The firm had revenue of $14.06 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.99 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.90 EPS. HP’s quarterly revenue was up 1.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts expect that HP Inc. will post 3.56 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

HP Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 2nd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, December 11th were issued a dividend of $0.2894 per share. This represents a $1.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.54%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, December 11th. This is an increase from HP’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.28. HP’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 41.28%.

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.