Traders Buy Large Volume of Call Options on Sirius XM (NASDAQ:SIRI)

Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:SIRI) was the recipient of some unusual options trading on Thursday. Stock investors acquired 132,821 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 45% compared to the average daily volume of 91,676 call options.

Insider Buying and Selling at Sirius XM

In other Sirius XM news, Director Kristina Salen sold 12,518 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, June 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $2.60, for a total transaction of $32,546.80. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 169,309 shares in the company, valued at approximately $440,203.40. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 0.79% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Sirius XM

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Berkshire Hathaway Inc increased its holdings in shares of Sirius XM by 315.6% in the 4th quarter. Berkshire Hathaway Inc now owns 40,243,058 shares of the company’s stock valued at $220,130,000 after purchasing an additional 30,559,834 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its holdings in shares of Sirius XM by 516.5% in the 1st quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 1,601,048 shares of the company’s stock valued at $6,212,000 after purchasing an additional 1,341,352 shares during the period. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd increased its holdings in shares of Sirius XM by 58.6% in the 2nd quarter. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd now owns 2,442,093 shares of the company’s stock valued at $6,911,000 after purchasing an additional 902,079 shares during the period. ProShare Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Sirius XM by 25.8% in the 1st quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 3,747,881 shares of the company’s stock valued at $14,542,000 after purchasing an additional 768,570 shares during the period. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp acquired a new position in shares of Sirius XM in the 1st quarter valued at about $2,036,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 10.69% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Barrington Research reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $4.75 price target on shares of Sirius XM in a report on Monday, July 15th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price target on shares of Sirius XM from $3.00 to $2.50 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, May 1st. Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Sirius XM from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, April 29th. Evercore ISI raised shares of Sirius XM from an “underperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and reduced their price target for the company from $4.25 to $3.25 in a report on Monday, June 24th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Sirius XM from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price target for the company from $3.50 to $3.25 in a report on Wednesday, May 1st. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $3.88.

Sirius XM Trading Down 3.4 %

Shares of Sirius XM stock opened at $3.12 on Friday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $3.12 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $3.70. Sirius XM has a 52 week low of $2.45 and a 52 week high of $5.78. The stock has a market cap of $12.00 billion, a PE ratio of 9.45, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.08.

Sirius XM (NASDAQ:SIRI) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.08 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.08. The firm had revenue of $2.18 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.20 billion. Sirius XM had a negative return on equity of 47.17% and a net margin of 14.38%. On average, equities analysts predict that Sirius XM will post 0.31 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Sirius XM Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, August 26th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 9th will be issued a dividend of $0.0266 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 9th. This represents a $0.11 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.41%. Sirius XM’s payout ratio is presently 33.33%.

Sirius XM Company Profile

Sirius XM Holdings Inc operates as an audio entertainment company in North America. It operates in two segments, Sirius XM, and Pandora and Off-platform. The company's Sirius XM segment provides music, sports, entertainment, comedy, talk, news, traffic and weather channels, and other content, as well as podcast and infotainment services on subscription fee basis; and live, curated, and exclusive and on demand programming services through satellite radio systems and streamed through applications for mobile and home devices, and other consumer electronic equipment.