Sirius XM (NASDAQ:SIRI) Shares Up 3.5%

Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:SIRI) shot up 3.5% during trading on Friday . The stock traded as high as $24.97 and last traded at $24.87. 462,556 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 84% from the average session volume of 2,850,251 shares. The stock had previously closed at $24.02.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have issued reports on SIRI. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their target price on shares of Sirius XM from $32.50 to $26.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday. Barrington Research restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $47.50 price objective on shares of Sirius XM in a research note on Monday, July 15th. Evercore ISI upgraded shares of Sirius XM from an “underperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $42.50 to $32.50 in a report on Monday, June 24th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft dropped their price objective on Sirius XM from $37.50 to $30.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, August 6th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities increased their price objective on Sirius XM from $3.40 to $28.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $36.91.

Sirius XM Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $96.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 72.79, a P/E/G ratio of 0.90 and a beta of 1.08. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $31.58 and its 200 day moving average price is $32.13.

Sirius XM (NASDAQ:SIRI) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.80 EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.80. Sirius XM had a negative return on equity of 52.15% and a net margin of 14.56%. The business had revenue of $2.18 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.20 billion. As a group, analysts predict that Sirius XM Holdings Inc. will post 3.14 EPS for the current year.

Sirius XM Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 26th. Investors of record on Friday, August 9th were given a dividend of $0.266 per share. This is an increase from Sirius XM’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.03. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 9th. This represents a $1.06 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.25%. Sirius XM’s dividend payout ratio is 321.21%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Scott Andrew Greenstein sold 144,723 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $31.60, for a total transaction of $4,573,246.80. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 98,933 shares in the company, valued at $3,126,282.80. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.79% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Sirius XM

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Sirius XM by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 54,682,133 shares of the company’s stock worth $299,111,000 after buying an additional 363,551 shares during the last quarter. Berkshire Hathaway Inc boosted its position in shares of Sirius XM by 315.6% during the fourth quarter. Berkshire Hathaway Inc now owns 40,243,058 shares of the company’s stock worth $220,130,000 after buying an additional 30,559,834 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in Sirius XM by 4.6% during the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,957,960 shares of the company’s stock worth $27,120,000 after acquiring an additional 218,211 shares during the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. bought a new position in shares of Sirius XM during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $12,858,000. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in shares of Sirius XM by 8.9% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 4,333,792 shares of the company’s stock worth $12,260,000 after purchasing an additional 353,860 shares in the last quarter. 10.69% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Sirius XM

Sirius XM Holdings Inc operates as an audio entertainment company in North America. It operates in two segments, Sirius XM, and Pandora and Off-platform. The company's Sirius XM segment provides music, sports, entertainment, comedy, talk, news, traffic and weather channels, and other content, as well as podcast and infotainment services on subscription fee basis; and live, curated, and exclusive and on demand programming services through satellite radio systems and streamed through applications for mobile and home devices, and other consumer electronic equipment.