Signature Estate & Investment Advisors LLC Sells 7,288 Shares of Waste Connections, Inc. (NYSE:WCN)

Signature Estate & Investment Advisors LLC cut its holdings in Waste Connections, Inc. (NYSE:WCN) by 40.5% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 10,695 shares of the business services provider’s stock after selling 7,288 shares during the period. Signature Estate & Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Waste Connections were worth $1,912,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Waste Connections by 6.2% during the third quarter. OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC now owns 3,617 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $647,000 after acquiring an additional 212 shares during the last quarter. Sycomore Asset Management increased its position in shares of Waste Connections by 49.0% during the third quarter. Sycomore Asset Management now owns 64,856 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $11,598,000 after buying an additional 21,340 shares during the period. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its holdings in Waste Connections by 7.1% in the third quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 7,174 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,283,000 after purchasing an additional 475 shares during the period. Metis Global Partners LLC grew its holdings in Waste Connections by 3.3% in the third quarter. Metis Global Partners LLC now owns 4,635 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $829,000 after purchasing an additional 147 shares during the period. Finally, Huntington National Bank grew its holdings in Waste Connections by 82.3% in the third quarter. Huntington National Bank now owns 514 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $92,000 after purchasing an additional 232 shares during the period. 86.09% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

WCN has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price target on shares of Waste Connections from $198.00 to $197.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, October 25th. Stifel Nicolaus restated a “buy” rating and set a $205.00 price objective (up previously from $200.00) on shares of Waste Connections in a research report on Friday, October 25th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of Waste Connections from $199.00 to $201.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, October 25th. CIBC increased their price objective on shares of Waste Connections from $191.00 to $193.00 and gave the company an “outperformer” rating in a research report on Friday, July 26th. Finally, Scotiabank started coverage on shares of Waste Connections in a research report on Friday, October 4th. They issued a “sector perform” rating and a $196.00 price target on the stock. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $195.56.

Waste Connections Stock Performance

WCN opened at $183.50 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $47.35 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 50.41, a PEG ratio of 3.13 and a beta of 0.72. The company has a fifty day moving average of $180.83 and a 200 day moving average of $176.73. Waste Connections, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $130.33 and a fifty-two week high of $188.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.99, a quick ratio of 0.77 and a current ratio of 0.77.

Waste Connections (NYSE:WCN) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, October 23rd. The business services provider reported $1.35 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.30 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $2.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.30 billion. Waste Connections had a net margin of 10.81% and a return on equity of 15.43%. Waste Connections’s quarterly revenue was up 13.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.17 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Waste Connections, Inc. will post 4.84 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Waste Connections Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, November 14th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 7th were paid a dividend of $0.315 per share. This represents a $1.26 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.69%. This is a boost from Waste Connections’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.29. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, November 7th. Waste Connections’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 34.62%.

Waste Connections Company Profile

Waste Connections, Inc provides non-hazardous waste collection, transfer, disposal, and resource recovery services in the United States and Canada. It offers collection services to residential, commercial, municipal, industrial, and exploration and production (E&P) customers; landfill disposal services; and recycling services for various recyclable materials, including compost, cardboard, mixed paper, plastic containers, glass bottles, and ferrous and aluminum metals.