Principal Securities Inc. Grows Stock Holdings in HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ)

Principal Securities Inc. grew its position in shares of HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ) by 20.3% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 18,613 shares of the computer maker’s stock after purchasing an additional 3,146 shares during the quarter. Principal Securities Inc.’s holdings in HP were worth $607,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of HP by 16.1% during the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,153,924 shares of the computer maker’s stock valued at $41,391,000 after buying an additional 160,268 shares during the last quarter. Oak Thistle LLC boosted its position in HP by 169.3% during the 4th quarter. Oak Thistle LLC now owns 34,682 shares of the computer maker’s stock valued at $1,132,000 after buying an additional 21,805 shares during the period. Tidal Investments LLC raised its position in HP by 47.5% during the 3rd quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 146,608 shares of the computer maker’s stock valued at $5,259,000 after purchasing an additional 47,230 shares during the last quarter. MML Investors Services LLC grew its position in shares of HP by 35.0% in the 3rd quarter. MML Investors Services LLC now owns 62,523 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $2,243,000 after buying an additional 16,207 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management lifted its stake in HP by 4.3% in the fourth quarter. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management now owns 446,848 shares of the computer maker’s stock worth $14,581,000 after acquiring an additional 18,557 shares during the period. 77.53% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Hsbc Global Res lowered shares of HP from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, November 29th. Barclays upped their price target on HP from $32.00 to $35.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on HP from $42.00 to $41.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, November 20th. HSBC lowered shares of HP from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and decreased their price target for the stock from $39.00 to $38.00 in a research note on Friday, November 29th. Finally, Citigroup lowered their target price on shares of HP from $37.00 to $36.50 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 27th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $36.68.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other HP news, CEO Enrique Lores sold 137,094 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $36.45, for a total transaction of $4,997,076.30. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 89,272 shares in the company, valued at $3,253,964.40. This represents a 60.56 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Stephanie Liebman sold 11,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $32.50, for a total transaction of $357,500.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 6,277 shares in the company, valued at $204,002.50. This trade represents a 63.67 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 273,035 shares of company stock valued at $9,670,068 in the last quarter. 0.41% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

HP Stock Performance

NYSE HPQ opened at $34.73 on Friday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $33.10 and its 200 day moving average is $34.81. HP Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $27.42 and a fifty-two week high of $39.79. The company has a market capitalization of $32.57 billion, a PE ratio of 12.36, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.92 and a beta of 1.05.

HP (NYSE:HPQ) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, November 26th. The computer maker reported $0.93 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.93. HP had a net margin of 5.18% and a negative return on equity of 253.39%. The company had revenue of $14.06 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.99 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.90 EPS. HP’s quarterly revenue was up 1.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that HP Inc. will post 3.56 EPS for the current year.

HP Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, March 12th will be given a $0.2894 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 12th. This represents a $1.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.33%. HP’s dividend payout ratio is currently 41.28%.

HP Company Profile

HP Inc provides products, technologies, software, solutions, and services to individual consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses, and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health, and education sectors worldwide. It operates through Personal Systems and Printing segments. The Personal Systems segment offers commercial personal computers (PCs), consumer PCs, workstations, thin clients, commercial tablets and mobility devices, retail point-of-sale systems, displays and other related accessories, software, support, and services for the commercial and consumer markets.