Liberty Energy (NYSE:LBRT) Lifted to Strong-Buy at Evercore ISI

Evercore ISI upgraded shares of Liberty Energy (NYSE:LBRT) to a strong-buy rating in a research note issued to investors on Thursday morning, Zacks.com reports.

Several other analysts have also recently commented on LBRT. Citigroup cut shares of Liberty Energy from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $25.00 to $19.00 in a research note on Friday. Bank of America dropped their target price on shares of Liberty Energy from $24.00 to $22.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Monday, July 15th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their target price on shares of Liberty Energy from $26.00 to $23.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday. TD Cowen dropped their target price on shares of Liberty Energy from $21.00 to $20.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Friday, July 19th. Finally, Atb Cap Markets downgraded shares of Liberty Energy from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $22.70.

Liberty Energy Stock Down 3.3 %

LBRT stock opened at $17.70 on Thursday. Liberty Energy has a one year low of $16.69 and a one year high of $24.75. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.95 billion, a PE ratio of 6.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.20 and a beta of 1.68. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a current ratio of 1.35. The company has a fifty day moving average of $20.03 and a 200-day moving average of $21.31.

Liberty Energy (NYSE:LBRT) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, October 16th. The company reported $0.45 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.55 by ($0.10). Liberty Energy had a return on equity of 22.85% and a net margin of 9.53%. The firm had revenue of $1.14 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.14 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.85 EPS. The firm’s revenue was down 6.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that Liberty Energy will post 2.14 EPS for the current year.

Liberty Energy Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 20th. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 6th will be paid a dividend of $0.08 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 6th. This is a positive change from Liberty Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.07. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.81%. Liberty Energy’s dividend payout ratio is currently 11.68%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Liberty Energy news, CEO Christopher A. Wright sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $19.91, for a total transaction of $398,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2,678,813 shares in the company, valued at $53,335,166.83. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In related news, CEO Christopher A. Wright sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $19.91, for a total value of $398,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2,678,813 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $53,335,166.83. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CFO Michael Stock sold 15,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $19.23, for a total value of $288,450.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 730,207 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,041,880.61. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 95,000 shares of company stock worth $1,945,650 over the last three months. 3.60% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Liberty Energy

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Well Done LLC boosted its stake in shares of Liberty Energy by 14.3% during the 3rd quarter. Well Done LLC now owns 16,028 shares of the company’s stock worth $306,000 after acquiring an additional 2,003 shares in the last quarter. AlphaMark Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Liberty Energy in the third quarter worth $293,000. nVerses Capital LLC boosted its position in shares of Liberty Energy by 279.3% in the third quarter. nVerses Capital LLC now owns 11,000 shares of the company’s stock worth $210,000 after buying an additional 8,100 shares during the period. Creative Planning boosted its position in shares of Liberty Energy by 3.7% in the third quarter. Creative Planning now owns 19,456 shares of the company’s stock worth $371,000 after buying an additional 703 shares during the period. Finally, Wesbanco Bank Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Liberty Energy in the third quarter worth $1,071,000. 98.22% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Liberty Energy

Liberty Energy Inc provides hydraulic services and related technologies to onshore oil and natural gas exploration, and production companies in North America. The company offers hydraulic fracturing services, including complementary services, such as wireline services, proppant delivery solutions, field gas processing and treating, compressed natural gas (CNG) delivery, data analytics, related goods comprising sand mine operations, and technologies; and well site fueling and logistics.