Spirit of America Management Corp NY Cuts Position in The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE:WMB)

Spirit of America Management Corp NY lessened its holdings in The Williams Companies, Inc. (NYSE:WMB) by 7.4% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 328,932 shares of the pipeline company’s stock after selling 26,100 shares during the quarter. Williams Companies accounts for approximately 3.0% of Spirit of America Management Corp NY’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 2nd biggest holding. Spirit of America Management Corp NY’s holdings in Williams Companies were worth $15,016,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the business. Clearbridge Investments LLC raised its position in Williams Companies by 5.9% during the first quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 20,983,727 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $817,736,000 after acquiring an additional 1,175,628 shares in the last quarter. Tortoise Capital Advisors L.L.C. raised its position in Williams Companies by 1.2% during the second quarter. Tortoise Capital Advisors L.L.C. now owns 12,670,175 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $538,482,000 after acquiring an additional 144,713 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in Williams Companies by 3.3% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 9,648,918 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $410,064,000 after acquiring an additional 311,530 shares in the last quarter. Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors LP raised its position in Williams Companies by 13.4% during the first quarter. Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors LP now owns 8,540,611 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $332,828,000 after acquiring an additional 1,010,658 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bahl & Gaynor Inc. raised its position in Williams Companies by 8.8% during the second quarter. Bahl & Gaynor Inc. now owns 7,664,152 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $325,726,000 after acquiring an additional 618,056 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 86.44% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have issued reports on WMB shares. Bank of America started coverage on shares of Williams Companies in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. They set a “buy” rating and a $55.00 price target on the stock. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Williams Companies from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $52.00 to $58.00 in a report on Friday, October 4th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Williams Companies from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 6th. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Williams Companies from $42.00 to $46.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, CIBC upped their price objective on shares of Williams Companies from $45.00 to $54.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $48.62.

Williams Companies Trading Up 0.7 %

WMB stock opened at $52.62 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.64, a quick ratio of 0.39 and a current ratio of 0.45. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $46.83 and its 200 day simple moving average is $43.14. The Williams Companies, Inc. has a 52 week low of $32.65 and a 52 week high of $52.82. The company has a market capitalization of $64.13 billion, a PE ratio of 22.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.87 and a beta of 1.05.

Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, August 5th. The pipeline company reported $0.43 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.38 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $2.34 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.46 billion. Williams Companies had a net margin of 27.11% and a return on equity of 16.17%. Williams Companies’s revenue was down 5.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.42 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that The Williams Companies, Inc. will post 1.91 earnings per share for the current year.

Williams Companies Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 27th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 13th were paid a dividend of $0.475 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, September 13th. This represents a $1.90 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.61%. Williams Companies’s payout ratio is 81.55%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Williams Companies news, SVP Terrance Lane Wilson sold 2,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $45.29, for a total transaction of $90,580.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 304,200 shares in the company, valued at $13,777,218. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.44% of the company’s stock.

Williams Companies Company Profile

The Williams Companies, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy infrastructure company primarily in the United States. It operates through Transmission & Gulf of Mexico, Northeast G&P, West, and Gas & NGL Marketing Services segments. The Transmission & Gulf of Mexico segment comprises natural gas pipelines; Transco, Northwest pipeline, MountainWest, and related natural gas storage facilities; and natural gas gathering and processing, and crude oil production handling and transportation assets in the Gulf Coast region.