Costello Asset Management INC Lowers Stake in Essential Utilities Inc. $WTRG

Costello Asset Management INC lessened its stake in Essential Utilities Inc. (NYSE:WTRG) by 80.6% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 19,054 shares of the company’s stock after selling 79,049 shares during the period. Costello Asset Management INC’s holdings in Essential Utilities were worth $731,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in WTRG. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Essential Utilities by 2.8% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 31,246,084 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,246,719,000 after buying an additional 838,450 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of Essential Utilities by 5.0% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 13,591,999 shares of the company’s stock valued at $542,321,000 after buying an additional 641,743 shares during the period. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its holdings in shares of Essential Utilities by 25.5% in the 3rd quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 8,972,565 shares of the company’s stock valued at $354,057,000 after buying an additional 1,822,306 shares during the period. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA lifted its stake in Essential Utilities by 19.5% during the 4th quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA now owns 4,539,977 shares of the company’s stock worth $174,163,000 after acquiring an additional 741,587 shares in the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its stake in Essential Utilities by 587.6% during the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 4,071,929 shares of the company’s stock worth $162,472,000 after acquiring an additional 3,479,762 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 74.78% of the company’s stock.

Essential Utilities Trading Down 0.7%

WTRG opened at $37.43 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.21, a quick ratio of 0.65 and a current ratio of 0.95. Essential Utilities Inc. has a one year low of $36.32 and a one year high of $42.37. The company has a market cap of $10.60 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.00 and a beta of 0.67. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $39.94 and its 200-day simple moving average is $39.31.

Essential Utilities (NYSE:WTRG) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported $0.83 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.90 by ($0.07). The business had revenue of $861.76 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $782.90 million. Essential Utilities had a net margin of 21.82% and a return on equity of 8.34%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.03 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Essential Utilities Inc. will post 2.25 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Essential Utilities Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, May 12th will be issued a $0.3426 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, May 12th. This represents a $1.37 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.7%. Essential Utilities’s dividend payout ratio is presently 69.54%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have weighed in on WTRG. Argus raised Essential Utilities to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 23rd. UBS Group set a $41.00 price target on shares of Essential Utilities in a research report on Thursday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has assigned a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $42.40.

About Essential Utilities

Essential Utilities, Inc, formerly known as Aqua America, is a publicly traded water and natural gas utility holding company. Through its regulated water and wastewater subsidiaries, the company provides essential water services to residential, commercial and industrial customers. In addition, Essential Utilities delivers natural gas distribution services in Pennsylvania through its Peoples Gas subsidiary, offering integrated utility solutions under a unified corporate framework.

The company traces its roots to the Philadelphia Suburban Water Company, founded in 1886 to serve growing communities outside Philadelphia.