Hershey Financial Advisers LLC Acquires Shares of 22,265 EQT Co. (NYSE:EQT)

Hershey Financial Advisers LLC purchased a new stake in EQT Co. (NYSE:EQT) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm purchased 22,265 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock, valued at approximately $1,027,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of EQT. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its position in EQT by 38.7% in the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 74,153,050 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock valued at $2,716,968,000 after purchasing an additional 20,700,921 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in EQT by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 72,530,286 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock valued at $3,344,371,000 after buying an additional 358,649 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in EQT by 24.5% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 37,095,597 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock valued at $1,359,183,000 after acquiring an additional 7,290,822 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in EQT by 34.4% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,997,574 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock valued at $511,159,000 after acquiring an additional 3,582,418 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Boston Partners boosted its stake in shares of EQT by 7.2% during the fourth quarter. Boston Partners now owns 6,356,476 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $293,213,000 after buying an additional 429,630 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.81% of the company’s stock.

EQT Stock Down 1.6 %

EQT stock opened at $52.89 on Monday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $51.25 and its 200 day simple moving average is $44.28. EQT Co. has a fifty-two week low of $30.02 and a fifty-two week high of $56.66. The firm has a market capitalization of $31.60 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 132.23, a PEG ratio of 0.64 and a beta of 1.12. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 0.70 and a quick ratio of 0.51.

EQT (NYSE:EQT) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 18th. The oil and gas producer reported $0.69 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.50 by $0.19. EQT had a net margin of 4.37% and a return on equity of 4.35%. The business had revenue of $1.82 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.81 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that EQT Co. will post 3.27 EPS for the current year.

EQT Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 18th were issued a $0.1575 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 18th. This represents a $0.63 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.19%. EQT’s dividend payout ratio is currently 157.50%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. Stephens upgraded shares of EQT from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $41.00 to $59.00 in a research report on Tuesday, March 18th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “reduce” rating on shares of EQT in a report on Wednesday, February 12th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of EQT from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $73.00 target price for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 15th. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of EQT from $54.00 to $58.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 25th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and set a $49.00 target price on shares of EQT in a research note on Monday, January 6th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $54.50.

About EQT

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.