Investors Purchase Large Volume of Call Options on JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM)

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) saw some unusual options trading activity on Friday. Stock traders acquired 167,546 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 139% compared to the typical volume of 70,225 call options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On JPMorgan Chase & Co.

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. jvl associates llc lifted its position in JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 15.2% during the fourth quarter. jvl associates llc now owns 2,334 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $559,000 after purchasing an additional 308 shares during the period. First Citizens Financial Corp raised its stake in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 3.4% during the 4th quarter. First Citizens Financial Corp now owns 10,851 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $2,601,000 after buying an additional 360 shares during the last quarter. Modus Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 0.7% in the 4th quarter. Modus Advisors LLC now owns 26,662 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $6,391,000 after buying an additional 194 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its stake in shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 11.0% in the fourth quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 90,733 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $21,750,000 after buying an additional 9,008 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Versant Capital Management Inc lifted its holdings in JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 37.1% in the fourth quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 3,797 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $910,000 after acquiring an additional 1,028 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 71.55% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on JPM shares. Wolfe Research upgraded JPMorgan Chase & Co. from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $269.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Friday. Barclays lifted their target price on JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $217.00 to $257.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, October 14th. Oppenheimer lowered shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 20th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, November 15th. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price target on shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $215.00 to $250.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $236.82.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Price Performance

Shares of NYSE JPM traded up $1.90 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $241.90. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 4,459,944 shares, compared to its average volume of 6,779,617. JPMorgan Chase & Co. has a 52 week low of $164.30 and a 52 week high of $254.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.27, a current ratio of 0.89 and a quick ratio of 0.89. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $239.32 and a two-hundred day moving average of $220.65. The firm has a market capitalization of $681.03 billion, a PE ratio of 13.46, a P/E/G ratio of 3.54 and a beta of 1.11.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) last released its earnings results on Friday, October 11th. The financial services provider reported $4.37 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.02 by $0.35. JPMorgan Chase & Co. had a return on equity of 16.71% and a net margin of 19.64%. The firm had revenue of $43.32 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $41.43 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $4.33 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that JPMorgan Chase & Co. will post 17.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, January 6th will be paid a $1.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, January 6th. This represents a $5.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.07%. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s dividend payout ratio is currently 27.82%.

About JPMorgan Chase & Co.

JPMorgan Chase & Co operates as a financial services company worldwide. It operates through four segments: Consumer & Community Banking (CCB), Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB), Commercial Banking (CB), and Asset & Wealth Management (AWM). The CCB segment offers deposit, investment and lending products, cash management, and payments and services; mortgage origination and servicing activities; residential mortgages and home equity loans; and credit cards, auto loans, leases, and travel services to consumers and small businesses through bank branches, ATMs, and digital and telephone banking.