Contrarius Group Holdings Ltd Acquires Shares of 304,856 EQT Co. (NYSE:EQT)

Contrarius Group Holdings Ltd acquired a new stake in EQT Co. (NYSE:EQT) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor acquired 304,856 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock, valued at approximately $14,057,000. EQT comprises about 0.9% of Contrarius Group Holdings Ltd’s holdings, making the stock its 24th largest position.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Sanctuary Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of EQT by 104.7% during the 3rd quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 63,507 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $2,327,000 after buying an additional 32,484 shares in the last quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama grew its position in shares of EQT by 36.7% during the 3rd quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 133,142 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $4,878,000 after buying an additional 35,733 shares in the last quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. grew its position in shares of EQT by 44.2% during the 4th quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 53,555 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $2,379,000 after buying an additional 16,416 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its position in EQT by 2.5% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,133,197 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock valued at $41,520,000 after purchasing an additional 28,129 shares in the last quarter. Finally, D.A. Davidson & CO. boosted its position in EQT by 13.4% during the fourth quarter. D.A. Davidson & CO. now owns 6,467 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock valued at $298,000 after purchasing an additional 762 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 90.81% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on EQT. Mizuho raised EQT from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $48.00 to $57.00 in a research report on Monday, December 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “reduce” rating on shares of EQT in a research report on Wednesday, February 12th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on EQT from $53.00 to $58.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Jefferies Financial Group raised their price objective on EQT from $45.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on EQT from $45.00 to $56.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, November 25th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $54.50.

EQT Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:EQT opened at $53.54 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 0.70 and a quick ratio of 0.51. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $51.07 and its 200-day moving average price is $43.92. The firm has a market capitalization of $31.99 billion, a PE ratio of 133.85, a P/E/G ratio of 0.64 and a beta of 1.12. EQT Co. has a 1 year low of $30.02 and a 1 year high of $56.66.

EQT (NYSE:EQT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 18th. The oil and gas producer reported $0.69 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.50 by $0.19. The firm had revenue of $1.82 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.81 billion. EQT had a return on equity of 4.35% and a net margin of 4.37%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that EQT Co. will post 3.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

EQT Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 18th were given a dividend of $0.1575 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 18th. This represents a $0.63 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.18%. EQT’s payout ratio is 157.50%.

EQT Company Profile

EQT Corporation operates as a natural gas production company in the United States. The company sells natural gas and natural gas liquids to marketers, utilities, and industrial customers through pipelines located in the Appalachian Basin. It also offers marketing services and contractual pipeline capacity management services.