Advisors Capital Management LLC Buys 17,798 Shares of Williams Companies, Inc. (The) $WMB

Advisors Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Williams Companies, Inc. (The) (NYSE:WMB) by 2.3% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 799,432 shares of the pipeline company’s stock after purchasing an additional 17,798 shares during the quarter. Advisors Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Williams Companies were worth $50,644,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Drucker Wealth 3.0 LLC boosted its stake in Williams Companies by 93.5% in the 3rd quarter. Drucker Wealth 3.0 LLC now owns 28,797 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $1,824,000 after purchasing an additional 13,917 shares during the period. NEOS Investment Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Williams Companies by 45.4% in the third quarter. NEOS Investment Management LLC now owns 165,469 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $10,482,000 after buying an additional 51,633 shares in the last quarter. Wealthcare Advisory Partners LLC boosted its position in shares of Williams Companies by 4.9% in the third quarter. Wealthcare Advisory Partners LLC now owns 6,753 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $428,000 after acquiring an additional 316 shares during the period. Rothschild Investment LLC boosted its position in shares of Williams Companies by 21.6% in the third quarter. Rothschild Investment LLC now owns 11,009 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $697,000 after acquiring an additional 1,956 shares during the period. Finally, Glenview Trust Co grew its stake in Williams Companies by 7.8% during the third quarter. Glenview Trust Co now owns 11,729 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $743,000 after acquiring an additional 847 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.44% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Williams Companies

Here are the key news stories impacting Williams Companies this week:

• Positive Sentiment: UBS raised its price target on WMB from $78 to $89 and reiterated a Buy rating, implying ~23.8% upside from the current price — a strong bullish signal that can attract buyers. Benzinga UBS Raise
• Positive Sentiment: Jefferies raised its price target from $78 to $81 and kept a Buy rating, implying ~12.7% upside — another analyst endorsement supporting further upside. Benzinga Jefferies Raise
• Positive Sentiment: Scotiabank upgraded WMB (coverage note) — additional brokerage upgrades increase the probability of fresh buying interest. AmericanBankingNews Upgrade
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst/Investor Day: WMB is guiding to a 10%+ CAGR in adjusted EBITDA through 2030 driven by power and transmission projects, and announced another behind‑the‑meter power project — a strategic growth thrust that supports higher longer‑term earnings power. ETF Trends Analyst Day
• Neutral Sentiment: Seeking Alpha published the investor-day slideshow — useful for investors wanting detail, but informational rather than market-moving by itself. Seeking Alpha Slideshow
• Neutral Sentiment: Media recap: InsiderMonkey noted WMB’s recent 8% weekly surge (Feb 6–13), highlighting recent momentum — reinforces that some of today’s move could be profit‑taking after that run. InsiderMonkey Recap
• Negative Sentiment: Intraday weakness and below-average volume: shares are retreating today after recent gains (volume ~6.8M vs. avg ~8.2M), suggesting short-term profit‑taking or absence of conviction despite the positive analyst headlines.

Insider Buying and Selling at Williams Companies

In related news, SVP Terrance Lane Wilson sold 2,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $66.39, for a total transaction of $132,780.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president owned 293,545 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $19,488,452.55. This trade represents a 0.68% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Insiders own 0.44% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

WMB has been the subject of several analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets cut their price target on shares of Williams Companies from $72.00 to $70.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 5th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on Williams Companies from $69.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Tudor Pickering raised Williams Companies from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 1st. Scotiabank upgraded Williams Companies from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $66.00 to $84.00 in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Williams Companies in a report on Monday, December 29th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirteen have issued a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $75.36.

Williams Companies Trading Down 0.6%

NYSE WMB opened at $71.87 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.48, a current ratio of 0.53 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.83. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $63.10 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $60.99. Williams Companies, Inc. has a twelve month low of $51.58 and a twelve month high of $73.04. The company has a market capitalization of $87.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.58, a PEG ratio of 1.30 and a beta of 0.65.

Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 10th. The pipeline company reported $0.55 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.57 by ($0.02). The firm had revenue of $3.20 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.10 billion. Williams Companies had a net margin of 21.90% and a return on equity of 17.32%. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.47 earnings per share. Williams Companies has set its FY 2026 guidance at 2.200-2.380 EPS. Research analysts forecast that Williams Companies, Inc. will post 2.08 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Williams Companies Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 30th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 13th will be paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.9%. This is a boost from Williams Companies’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.50. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 13th. Williams Companies’s payout ratio is 93.46%.

Williams Companies Company Profile

Williams Companies, Inc (NYSE: WMB) is a U.S.-based energy infrastructure company focused on the midstream segment of the natural gas value chain. The company develops, owns and operates assets that gather, process, transport and store natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs). Its operations support the movement of gas from production areas to end users including utilities, power generators, industrial customers and export facilities.

Williams’s product and service offering includes interstate and intrastate pipeline transmission, gas-gathering systems, processing facilities that remove impurities and separate NGLs, storage services and fractionation and transportation of NGL products.