Stock Traders Purchase Large Volume of Call Options on Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE)

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) saw some unusual options trading on Wednesday. Stock investors bought 15,973 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 6% compared to the typical volume of 15,032 call options.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have weighed in on HPE shares. Barclays upgraded Hewlett Packard Enterprise from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $20.00 to $24.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. Citigroup boosted their price target on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $20.00 to $23.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 19th. Loop Capital increased their price objective on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $16.00 to $18.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, September 9th. Bank of America upgraded Hewlett Packard Enterprise from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $21.00 to $24.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. Finally, Raymond James raised Hewlett Packard Enterprise from an “outperform” rating to a “strong-buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $23.00 to $29.00 in a research report on Monday, November 18th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Hewlett Packard Enterprise presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $22.21.

Insider Activity

In other news, EVP Neil B. Macdonald sold 29,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $17.00, for a total transaction of $493,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 82,061 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,395,037. The trade was a 26.11 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Antonio F. Neri sold 83,334 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $19.72, for a total transaction of $1,643,346.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,758,641 shares in the company, valued at approximately $34,680,400.52. The trade was a 4.52 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 426,012 shares of company stock worth $8,599,617 in the last three months. Company insiders own 0.40% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Hewlett Packard Enterprise

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of HPE. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 14,953.2% in the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 23,189,645 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $490,925,000 after purchasing an additional 23,035,594 shares in the last quarter. Marshall Wace LLP raised its position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 3,228.2% in the second quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 8,825,249 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $186,831,000 after buying an additional 8,560,086 shares in the last quarter. Eagle Asset Management Inc. boosted its stake in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 3,537.0% during the third quarter. Eagle Asset Management Inc. now owns 5,788,154 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $127,571,000 after buying an additional 5,629,006 shares during the period. Mizuho Markets Americas LLC purchased a new position in Hewlett Packard Enterprise during the third quarter worth about $105,185,000. Finally, Panagora Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 336.7% in the 2nd quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 4,269,603 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $90,387,000 after acquiring an additional 3,291,880 shares during the last quarter. 80.78% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:HPE opened at $20.80 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $27.01 billion, a PE ratio of 14.86, a P/E/G ratio of 3.25 and a beta of 1.19. The company has a quick ratio of 0.62, a current ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $20.62 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $19.72. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has a twelve month low of $14.47 and a twelve month high of $22.82.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, September 4th. The technology company reported $0.50 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.47 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $7.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.67 billion. Hewlett Packard Enterprise had a net margin of 6.39% and a return on equity of 8.94%. Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s revenue was up 10.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.35 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Hewlett Packard Enterprise will post 1.66 EPS for the current year.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 18th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, September 19th were given a dividend of $0.13 per share. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.50%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 19th. Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s dividend payout ratio is presently 37.14%.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company Profile

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company provides solutions that allow customers to capture, analyze, and act upon data seamlessly in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Japan. It operates in six segments: Compute, HPC & AI, Storage, Intelligent Edge, Financial Services, and Corporate Investments and Other.