Stock Traders Buy Large Volume of SLB Call Options (NYSE:SLB)

SLB Limited (NYSE:SLB) saw unusually large options trading activity on Thursday. Traders purchased 55,917 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 42% compared to the average volume of 39,267 call options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On SLB

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Synergy Asset Management LLC increased its stake in shares of SLB by 100.0% in the 3rd quarter. Synergy Asset Management LLC now owns 80,830 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock valued at $2,732,000 after buying an additional 40,415 shares during the period. Americana Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of SLB by 10.1% during the third quarter. Americana Partners LLC now owns 248,057 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock valued at $8,526,000 after acquiring an additional 22,706 shares during the period. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd boosted its holdings in SLB by 13.8% in the third quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 210,056 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock valued at $7,220,000 after acquiring an additional 25,417 shares during the last quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB increased its position in SLB by 4.9% in the third quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 2,157,885 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $72,354,000 after purchasing an additional 100,918 shares during the period. Finally, Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG increased its position in SLB by 1,937.4% in the third quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG now owns 996,948 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $34,265,000 after purchasing an additional 948,015 shares during the period. 81.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

SLB has been the topic of several research reports. Evercore restated an “outperform” rating and set a $64.00 price objective on shares of SLB in a report on Monday. Argus raised SLB to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 26th. Wall Street Zen cut SLB from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, March 14th. Weiss Ratings raised SLB from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 22nd. Finally, TD Cowen raised their target price on SLB from $55.00 to $66.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, sixteen have assigned a Buy rating, three have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $58.32.

SLB Price Performance

Shares of SLB stock traded up $0.84 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $56.54. The company had a trading volume of 4,456,555 shares, compared to its average volume of 19,569,996. SLB has a 12 month low of $31.64 and a 12 month high of $56.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a current ratio of 1.34. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $50.56 and its 200 day moving average is $44.20. The firm has a market capitalization of $84.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.70, a PEG ratio of 3.79 and a beta of 0.69.

SLB (NYSE:SLB) last released its quarterly earnings data on Saturday, April 25th. The oil and gas company reported $0.52 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.51 by $0.01. SLB had a return on equity of 15.54% and a net margin of 9.26%.The firm had revenue of $8.72 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.76 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.72 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts predict that SLB will post 2.67 EPS for the current fiscal year.

SLB Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, July 9th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, June 3rd will be paid a $0.295 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, June 3rd. This represents a $1.18 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.1%. SLB’s payout ratio is 51.53%.

SLB Company Profile

SLB (NYSE: SLB), historically known as Schlumberger, is a leading global provider of technology, integrated project management and information solutions for the energy industry. Founded by Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger in 1926, the company develops and supplies products and services used across the exploration, drilling, completion and production phases of oil and gas development. Its offerings are intended to help operators characterize reservoirs, drill and complete wells, optimize production and manage field operations throughout the asset lifecycle.

SLB’s product and service portfolio spans reservoir characterization and well testing, wireline and logging services, directional drilling and drilling tools, well construction and completion technologies, production systems, and subsea equipment.