Traders Buy Large Volume of Call Options on Nokia (NYSE:NOK)

Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Monday. Stock investors acquired 107,049 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 1,166% compared to the typical volume of 8,459 call options.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Acadian Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Nokia in the first quarter valued at about $45,207,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in Nokia by 18.8% during the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 468,939 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,471,000 after acquiring an additional 74,072 shares during the period. TCW Group Inc. acquired a new stake in Nokia during the first quarter worth about $425,000. Northern Trust Corp grew its holdings in Nokia by 6.2% during the first quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,903,825 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $20,573,000 after acquiring an additional 228,030 shares during the period. Finally, GSA Capital Partners LLP acquired a new stake in Nokia during the first quarter worth about $641,000. 5.28% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

NOK has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. BNP Paribas Exane upgraded Nokia from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $5.00 price target for the company in a research note on Wednesday, September 3rd. BNP Paribas upgraded Nokia from a “hold” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $5.00 price target for the company in a research note on Wednesday, September 3rd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price target on Nokia from $6.50 to $6.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, July 29th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $5.52.

Nokia Stock Up 1.6%

Shares of NOK stock opened at $4.85 on Wednesday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $4.39 and its 200-day simple moving average is $4.89. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a quick ratio of 1.21 and a current ratio of 1.46. The firm has a market capitalization of $26.07 billion, a PE ratio of 24.23 and a beta of 0.90. Nokia has a fifty-two week low of $3.91 and a fifty-two week high of $5.48.

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 24th. The technology company reported $0.05 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.07 by ($0.02). The firm had revenue of $5.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.82 billion. Nokia had a net margin of 5.30% and a return on equity of 8.36%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.06 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Nokia will post 0.34 earnings per share for the current year.

Nokia Company Profile

Nokia Oyj provides mobile, fixed, and cloud network solutions worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Network Infrastructure, Mobile Networks, Cloud and Network Services, and Nokia Technologies. The company provides fixed networking solutions, such as fiber and copper-based access infrastructure, in-home Wi-Fi solutions, and cloud and virtualization services; IP networking solutions, including IP access, aggregation, and edge and core routing for residential, mobile, enterprise and cloud applications; optical networks solutions that provides optical transport networks for metro, regional, and long-haul applications, and subsea applications; and submarine networks for undersea cable transmission.