Payden & Rygel Cuts Position in EQT Co. (NYSE:EQT)

Payden & Rygel decreased its stake in EQT Co. (NYSE:EQT) by 96.6% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 6,520 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock after selling 187,950 shares during the period. Payden & Rygel’s holdings in EQT were worth $301,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in shares of EQT by 38.7% during the 3rd 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 acquiring an additional 20,700,921 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in EQT by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 72,530,286 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $3,344,371,000 after purchasing an additional 358,649 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in EQT by 24.5% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 37,095,597 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $1,359,183,000 after purchasing an additional 7,290,822 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in EQT by 3.1% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 14,427,307 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock worth $663,552,000 after purchasing an additional 429,733 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC grew its holdings in EQT by 14.7% in the fourth quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 13,829,938 shares of the oil and gas producer’s stock valued at $637,698,000 after purchasing an additional 1,774,696 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.81% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

EQT has been the subject of several research reports. Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of EQT from $51.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Mizuho lifted their target price on shares of EQT from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price target on shares of EQT from $45.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of EQT from $53.00 to $58.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein raised EQT from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $73.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 15th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $55.28.

EQT Stock Down 11.6 %

EQT opened at $46.02 on Friday. EQT Co. has a 12 month low of $30.02 and a 12 month high of $56.66. The business has a 50-day moving average of $51.25 and a two-hundred day moving average of $45.51. 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 stock has a market capitalization of $27.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 115.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.64 and a beta of 1.12.

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

EQT Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 18th were issued 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 dividend yield of 1.37%. 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.