On February 11th, 2021, California Public Employees Retirement System made a bold move by raising its stake in Equitrans Midstream Co. (NYSE:ETRN) by 17.4%. This strategic decision was announced in the company’s most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission and sent shockwaves throughout the financial world.
The fund now owns a total of 600,307 shares of ETRN’s stock, representing an increase of 89,040 shares over the course of the fourth quarter. This places California Public Employees Retirement System’s ownership at 0.14% of Equitrans Midstream, with a market value of $4,022,000 as recorded on their most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.
This move comes as no surprise to seasoned analysts who have followed ETRN’s upward trajectory since it last announced its earnings results on May 2nd, 2017. During that reporting quarter, Equitrans Midstream recorded $0.22 earnings per share which exceeded analyst projections of $0.14 EPS by $0.08.
In addition to surpassing earnings expectations for that quarter, ETRN also reported revenue growth totaling $376.30 million; this figure outpaced industry projected estimates of $360.73 million for that fiscal period. This positive trend was buoyed by a profitable return on equity which came in at an impressive rate of 18.92%.
Equitrans Midstream has demonstrated steady growth momentum further reflected in impressive numbers for Q1 2021 amidst continued uncertainty caused by Covid-19 pandemic realities putting them above expectation levels for sales and margins in Q2 and beyond.
Further solidifying this burgeoning relationship between investor and investment occurred rightfully when CFO Kirk R.Oliver demonstrated confidence in Equitrans Midstream investments by purchasing an additional 9k shares of ETRN stock on March 16th at an average cost of $5.46 per share.
Following this purchase, Oliver owns an additional 39,118 shares of ETRN’s stock valued at roughly $213,584.28. This timely investment demonstrated confidence in the resurgence of some companies recovering from Covid-19 pandemic economic realities leaving them below expectation but later bounced back.
From a regulatory standpoint, Company insiders who jointly own 0.52% of ETRN’s stock remain loyal to the growth potential as evidenced by their purchase history and positive sentiment about this investment, and can only leave investors speculating on what lies ahead for Equitrans Midstream.
Equitrans Midstream, a company providing midstream natural gas services, has seen a number of modifications to their stock holdings and investor positions recently. Notably, Swiss National Bank has increased their stake in the company by 1.8% to now hold 992,687 shares of the firm’s stock, worth $6.65m. Additionally, Arizona State earned 116,015 shares whilst Eagle Global Advisors received 902,369 shares as Catalyst Capital Advisors added an extra 1,330,520 shares. Finally, Commonwealth Equity bought an additional 45,593 shares – putting institutional investors at owning nearly all of Equitrans Midstream’s stock.
Despite investor purchases of late which saw prices open up at $5.93 on Friday for ETRN stocks and put its market capitalization at $2.57bn; a major decrease from its high of $9.90 last year – Barclays released research noting it believes ETRN should remain static with “equal weight” status and other research firms have maintained neutral ratings. However Citigroup warned of future downturns by reducing its target price on ETRN earlier this year. Conversely though press coverage highlighted that CFO Kirk R.Oliver made several stock purchases totalling $49k over the past few weeks.
While Equitrans has announced quarterly dividend cuts between May and June this year which will impact total payouts to shareholders throughout the remainder of the year- those unfamiliar with actual figures may want to keep track outside of discrepancies in broker analyst views lest they miss key opportunities or misinterpret a fair price range for making trades on this particular stock.
