Cetera Investment Advisers Purchases 655 Shares of Spire Inc. (NYSE:SR)

Cetera Investment Advisers boosted its stake in shares of Spire Inc. (NYSE:SR) by 8.7% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 8,151 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after buying an additional 655 shares during the period. Cetera Investment Advisers’ holdings in Spire were worth $553,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Barclays PLC increased its stake in Spire by 127.8% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 109,372 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $7,360,000 after purchasing an additional 61,357 shares during the period. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC boosted its position in Spire by 4.0% during the fourth quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 12,155 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $824,000 after purchasing an additional 466 shares in the last quarter. Blue Trust Inc. boosted its position in Spire by 26.5% during the fourth quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,337 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $90,000 after purchasing an additional 280 shares in the last quarter. KBC Group NV boosted its position in Spire by 48.2% during the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 2,307 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $156,000 after purchasing an additional 750 shares in the last quarter. Finally, R Squared Ltd bought a new stake in Spire during the fourth quarter valued at about $37,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.36% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

SR has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH raised Spire to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, May 9th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on Spire from $75.00 to $82.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 1st. Guggenheim boosted their price objective on Spire from $67.00 to $72.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 1st. Mizuho lifted their price target on Spire from $76.00 to $82.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised Spire from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $72.00 to $85.00 in a research note on Thursday, March 20th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $77.40.

Spire Stock Performance

NYSE SR opened at $74.70 on Tuesday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $75.87 and a 200-day simple moving average of $72.67. Spire Inc. has a twelve month low of $57.77 and a twelve month high of $79.81. The company has a current ratio of 0.50, a quick ratio of 0.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.21. The stock has a market cap of $4.41 billion, a PE ratio of 18.09, a P/E/G ratio of 2.82 and a beta of 0.65.

Spire (NYSE:SR) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 30th. The utilities provider reported $3.60 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.70 by ($0.10). The company had revenue of $1.05 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.15 billion. Spire had a net margin of 9.70% and a return on equity of 7.88%. Spire’s revenue for the quarter was down 6.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.45 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Spire Inc. will post 4.5 earnings per share for the current year.

Spire Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 2nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 11th will be issued a $0.785 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, June 11th. This represents a $3.14 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.20%. Spire’s payout ratio is currently 77.34%.

About Spire

Spire Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the purchase, retail distribution, and sale of natural gas to residential, commercial, industrial, and other end-users of natural gas in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Gas Utility, Gas Marketing, and Midstream. It is also involved in the marketing of natural gas and related services; and transportation and storage of natural gas.