Stock Traders Purchase High Volume of Comcast Call Options (NASDAQ:CMCSA)

Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) saw unusually large options trading on Tuesday. Stock traders bought 55,616 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 164% compared to the average volume of 21,058 call options.

Institutional Trading of Comcast

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Sculati Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Comcast by 0.9% in the fourth quarter. Sculati Wealth Management LLC now owns 30,792 shares of the cable giant’s stock valued at $1,156,000 after purchasing an additional 285 shares in the last quarter. Beck Mack & Oliver LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Comcast by 2.0% in the fourth quarter. Beck Mack & Oliver LLC now owns 15,539 shares of the cable giant’s stock valued at $583,000 after purchasing an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Toth Financial Advisory Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Comcast by 9.0% in the first quarter. Toth Financial Advisory Corp now owns 3,630 shares of the cable giant’s stock valued at $134,000 after purchasing an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Clearstead Trust LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Comcast by 5.2% in the first quarter. Clearstead Trust LLC now owns 6,142 shares of the cable giant’s stock valued at $227,000 after purchasing an additional 305 shares in the last quarter. Finally, United Asset Strategies Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Comcast by 2.2% in the first quarter. United Asset Strategies Inc. now owns 14,075 shares of the cable giant’s stock valued at $519,000 after purchasing an additional 308 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 84.32% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on CMCSA shares. UBS Group set a $44.50 price objective on Comcast in a report on Friday, April 25th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered Comcast from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and cut their price target for the company from $37.00 to $31.00 in a research note on Monday, April 14th. Citigroup cut their price target on Comcast from $44.00 to $39.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Oppenheimer cut their price target on Comcast from $55.00 to $38.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, April 25th. Finally, BNP Paribas downgraded Comcast from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and set a $31.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Thursday, April 10th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $41.80.

Comcast Trading Down 1.4%

Shares of NASDAQ CMCSA opened at $35.83 on Thursday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $34.72 and its 200 day simple moving average is $35.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.06, a current ratio of 0.65 and a quick ratio of 0.65. The firm has a market capitalization of $133.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.80, a P/E/G ratio of 1.76 and a beta of 0.95. Comcast has a fifty-two week low of $31.44 and a fifty-two week high of $45.31.

Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 24th. The cable giant reported $1.09 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.01 by $0.08. The company had revenue of $29.89 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $29.82 billion. Comcast had a net margin of 12.72% and a return on equity of 19.70%. The firm’s revenue was down .6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.04 earnings per share. On average, analysts predict that Comcast will post 4.33 EPS for the current year.

Comcast Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, July 2nd will be paid a $0.33 dividend. This represents a $1.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, July 2nd. Comcast’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 32.43%.

Comcast Company Profile

Comcast Corporation operates as a media and technology company worldwide. It operates through Residential Connectivity & Platforms, Business Services Connectivity, Media, Studios, and Theme Parks segments. The Residential Connectivity & Platforms segment provides residential broadband and wireless connectivity services, residential and business video services, sky-branded entertainment television networks, and advertising.