Royal Bank of Canada Reiterates “Sector Perform” Rating for Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE:PAA)

Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE:PAA)‘s stock had its “sector perform” rating reaffirmed by analysts at Royal Bank of Canada in a research note issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $19.00 target price on the pipeline company’s stock. Royal Bank of Canada’s price objective suggests a potential upside of 10.66% from the company’s previous close.

A number of other research analysts have also recently commented on PAA. Bank of America began coverage on Plains All American Pipeline in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $18.00 price objective on the stock. Morgan Stanley downgraded Plains All American Pipeline from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $22.00 to $19.00 in a report on Friday, October 25th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $19.82.

Plains All American Pipeline Stock Performance

Shares of PAA stock traded up $0.03 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $17.17. The stock had a trading volume of 1,473,444 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,763,985. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64, a current ratio of 1.01 and a quick ratio of 0.90. The firm has a market cap of $12.04 billion, a PE ratio of 15.33 and a beta of 1.61. Plains All American Pipeline has a fifty-two week low of $14.46 and a fifty-two week high of $19.17. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $17.34 and its 200-day simple moving average is $17.53.

Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE:PAA) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, November 8th. The pipeline company reported $0.37 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.31 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $12.74 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.09 billion. Plains All American Pipeline had a return on equity of 11.63% and a net margin of 2.08%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.35 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Plains All American Pipeline will post 1.29 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Plains All American Pipeline

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Citigroup Inc. raised its position in Plains All American Pipeline by 48.9% in the 3rd quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 3,428,897 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $59,560,000 after purchasing an additional 1,125,386 shares during the last quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in Plains All American Pipeline by 114.9% in the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 1,908,416 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $34,081,000 after buying an additional 1,020,277 shares in the last quarter. Blackstone Inc. raised its stake in shares of Plains All American Pipeline by 1.4% in the 1st quarter. Blackstone Inc. now owns 23,539,035 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $413,345,000 after purchasing an additional 318,944 shares during the period. CUSHING ASSET MANAGEMENT LP dba NXG INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT increased its stake in Plains All American Pipeline by 241.0% in the 3rd quarter. CUSHING ASSET MANAGEMENT LP dba NXG INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT now owns 449,827 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $7,813,000 after buying an additional 317,927 shares during the last quarter. Finally, ING Groep NV increased its holdings in Plains All American Pipeline by 29.1% during the third quarter. ING Groep NV now owns 1,321,937 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $22,962,000 after buying an additional 297,937 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 41.78% of the company’s stock.

About Plains All American Pipeline

Plains All American Pipeline, L.P., through its subsidiaries, engages in the pipeline transportation, terminaling, storage, and gathering of crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGL) in the United States and Canada. The company operates through two segments, Crude Oil and NGL. The Crude Oil segment offers gathering and transporting crude oil through pipelines, gathering systems, trucks, and on barges or railcars.