ALPS Advisors, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Western Midstream Partners LP (NYSE:WES). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Energy company by 13.00% to 33.52 million shares with purchase of 3.86 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 8.83% valued currently at $999.55 million. In addition, Invesco Advisers, Inc. raised its holdings by 2.42 million to 20.43 million shares. And Goldman Sachs Asset Management LP has lifted its position by 4.64% or 0.47 million shares – to 10.53 million shares.
With over 0.44 million Western Midstream Partners LP (WES) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $27.77 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $12.31 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 6.85% and its price on 12/22/23 gained nearly 0.25%. Currently, there are 384.07M common shares owned by the public and among those 191.75M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 14 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for WES have a consensus price objective of $31.00. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $35.00 and a low of $27.00. The average price target is 10.42% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -2.85% over that period. But an upside of 20.66% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $31.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 50 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 26 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 311,751 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 24 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 10,309,280 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Western Midstream Partners LP are Alerian MLP ETF, Invesco SteelPath MLP Income Fund, and Global X MLP ETF. Alerian MLP ETF owns 34.59 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $1.03 billion. The company sold 4843.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 9.12% of the shares outstanding. Invesco SteelPath MLP Income Fund bought 2.69 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 12.69 million shares valued at over $378.42 million and representing 3.34% of the shares outstanding. Global X MLP ETF sold 6536.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 5.31 million shares at a value of $158.28 million. Global X MLP ETF now owns shares totaling to 1.40% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Western Midstream Partners LP (NYSE: WES) opened at $27.77, up $0.07 from a prior closing price of $27.70. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -1.70% and 3.00% over the past three months. WES shares are trading 4.80% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 10.09% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $23.48 and touched a high of $30.20 over the same period. WES has an average intraday trading volume of 1.31 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by -2.36%, -0.91%, and 3.20% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Western Midstream Partners LP (NYSE: WES) shares accounts for 42.78% of the company’s 384.07M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 26.06%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 49.21% and 17.28% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $10.54B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 2.72. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 10.24, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $2.71. The company has a PEG of 2.70 and a Quick Ratio of 1.78 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 2.57. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.25% over the week and 2.16% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Western Midstream Partners LP (WES) will achieve an EPS of $0.78 for the current quarter, $0.8 for the next quarter and $3.27 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.72 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.89. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.85 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -11.61%, and 23.07% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 3.80% over the next five years, compared to 11.78% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 14 brokerage firm advisors rate Western Midstream Partners LP (WES) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.36. Specifically, 5 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 5 of the 14 advise that investors “hold,” and 1 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the WES, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. BofA Securities stated their Underperform rating for the stock in a research note on December 13, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $30-$27.
