Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) Lifted to Overweight at Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating in a research note issued to investors on Friday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. They currently have $58.00 price objective on the pipeline company’s stock, up from their prior price objective of $52.00.

WMB has been the topic of several other reports. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Williams Companies from $51.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Williams Companies from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 6th. Seaport Res Ptn downgraded shares of Williams Companies from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 30th. Truist Financial upped their price target on shares of Williams Companies from $40.00 to $42.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, June 18th. Finally, Argus upgraded shares of Williams Companies from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, June 20th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Williams Companies presently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $46.08.

Williams Companies Price Performance

NYSE:WMB opened at $49.66 on Friday. Williams Companies has a one year low of $32.65 and a one year high of $49.94. The company has a market cap of $60.52 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.95, a P/E/G ratio of 6.54 and a beta of 1.05. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $44.75 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $42.06. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.64, a current ratio of 0.45 and a quick ratio of 0.39.

Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, August 5th. The pipeline company reported $0.43 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.38 by $0.05. Williams Companies had a net margin of 27.11% and a return on equity of 16.17%. The firm had revenue of $2.34 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.46 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.42 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts expect that Williams Companies will post 1.93 earnings per share for the current year.

Williams Companies Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 27th. Investors of record on Friday, September 13th were given a dividend of $0.475 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, September 13th. This represents a $1.90 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.83%. Williams Companies’s dividend payout ratio is 79.83%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, SVP Terrance Lane Wilson sold 2,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $45.29, for a total value of $90,580.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 304,200 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $13,777,218. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.44% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in WMB. Rise Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Williams Companies in the first quarter worth about $27,000. Fairman Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Williams Companies in the fourth quarter worth about $31,000. SouthState Corp acquired a new position in shares of Williams Companies in the second quarter valued at approximately $31,000. GHP Investment Advisors Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Williams Companies in the second quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Finally, Quarry LP acquired a new position in shares of Williams Companies in the second quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Institutional investors own 86.44% of the company’s stock.

About Williams Companies

The Williams Companies, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy infrastructure company primarily in the United States. It operates through Transmission & Gulf of Mexico, Northeast G&P, West, and Gas & NGL Marketing Services segments. The Transmission & Gulf of Mexico segment comprises natural gas pipelines; Transco, Northwest pipeline, MountainWest, and related natural gas storage facilities; and natural gas gathering and processing, and crude oil production handling and transportation assets in the Gulf Coast region.