Kinder Morgan Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NYSE:KMI)

Kinder Morgan, Inc. (NYSE:KMI) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Tuesday. Traders bought 26,802 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 45% compared to the typical volume of 18,489 call options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on KMI shares. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on shares of Kinder Morgan from $26.00 to $29.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 26th. Morgan Stanley set a $26.00 price objective on shares of Kinder Morgan in a research report on Friday, October 18th. Barclays boosted their price target on Kinder Morgan from $24.00 to $27.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on Kinder Morgan from $27.00 to $30.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, Scotiabank assumed coverage on shares of Kinder Morgan in a research report on Friday. They set a “sector perform” rating and a $26.00 price target for the company. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, five have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $26.67.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Kinder Morgan news, President Thomas A. Martin sold 18,000 shares of Kinder Morgan stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $27.91, for a total transaction of $502,380.00. Following the transaction, the president now directly owns 861,652 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $24,048,707.32. The trade was a 2.05 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director C Park Shaper sold 690,142 shares of Kinder Morgan stock in a transaction on Monday, October 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $24.75, for a total transaction of $17,081,014.50. Following the transaction, the director now owns 6,809,858 shares in the company, valued at $168,543,985.50. The trade was a 9.20 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 745,263 shares of company stock worth $18,578,014. 12.64% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in KMI. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in shares of Kinder Morgan by 1.5% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 16,904,252 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $335,891,000 after purchasing an additional 257,658 shares during the period. Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors LP grew its holdings in shares of Kinder Morgan by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter. Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors LP now owns 10,550,002 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $233,050,000 after acquiring an additional 69,307 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC increased its stake in shares of Kinder Morgan by 39.9% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 8,186,207 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $180,833,000 after acquiring an additional 2,334,273 shares during the last quarter. Marshall Wace LLP raised its holdings in shares of Kinder Morgan by 20.6% during the second quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 7,770,943 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $154,409,000 after acquiring an additional 1,328,082 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of Montreal Can grew its stake in Kinder Morgan by 2.2% in the third quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 7,485,834 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $163,116,000 after purchasing an additional 164,152 shares in the last quarter. 62.52% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Kinder Morgan Price Performance

Kinder Morgan stock traded up $0.60 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $29.12. 14,221,581 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 11,672,043. Kinder Morgan has a 1-year low of $16.47 and a 1-year high of $29.29. The firm has a market cap of $64.69 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.54, a P/E/G ratio of 3.87 and a beta of 0.94. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $27.39 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $23.85. The company has a quick ratio of 0.35, a current ratio of 0.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.95.

Kinder Morgan (NYSE:KMI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 16th. The pipeline company reported $0.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.27 by ($0.02). The firm had revenue of $3.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.05 billion. Kinder Morgan had a net margin of 16.76% and a return on equity of 7.87%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.25 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Kinder Morgan will post 1.18 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Kinder Morgan Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 31st were given a dividend of $0.2875 per share. This represents a $1.15 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.95%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 31st. Kinder Morgan’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 100.88%.

About Kinder Morgan

Kinder Morgan, Inc operates as an energy infrastructure company primarily in North America. The company operates through Natural Gas Pipelines, Products Pipelines, Terminals, and CO2 segments. The Natural Gas Pipelines segment owns and operates interstate and intrastate natural gas pipeline, and storage systems; natural gas gathering systems and natural gas processing and treating facilities; natural gas liquids fractionation facilities and transportation systems; and liquefied natural gas gasification, liquefaction, and storage facilities.