Short Interest in Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) Declines By 14.0%

Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) was the recipient of a significant drop in short interest during the month of December. As of December 31st, there was short interest totalling 6,370,000 shares, a drop of 14.0% from the December 15th total of 7,410,000 shares. Approximately 1.6% of the company’s shares are sold short. Based on an average trading volume of 2,610,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.4 days.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently weighed in on PSX. Scotiabank reduced their price objective on shares of Phillips 66 from $145.00 to $136.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Wolfe Research upgraded Phillips 66 from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $143.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Piper Sandler lowered Phillips 66 from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Barclays decreased their target price on shares of Phillips 66 from $124.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price target on shares of Phillips 66 from $167.00 to $161.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $147.93.

Phillips 66 Stock Up 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE PSX traded up $0.68 during trading on Thursday, hitting $119.68. 1,985,881 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,906,478. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.62, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a current ratio of 1.21. The business’s fifty day moving average is $122.73 and its 200 day moving average is $129.95. The firm has a market capitalization of $49.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.36, a P/E/G ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 1.38. Phillips 66 has a fifty-two week low of $108.90 and a fifty-two week high of $174.08.

Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The oil and gas company reported $2.04 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.63 by $0.41. The business had revenue of $36.16 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $36.31 billion. Phillips 66 had a return on equity of 13.12% and a net margin of 2.24%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 10.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $4.63 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Phillips 66 will post 7.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Phillips 66

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of PSX. Van ECK Associates Corp grew its holdings in shares of Phillips 66 by 263.3% during the third quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 83,278 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock valued at $10,753,000 after buying an additional 60,355 shares during the last quarter. Everence Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in Phillips 66 during the 4th quarter valued at about $3,033,000. Mizuho Securities USA LLC increased its holdings in Phillips 66 by 7,549.0% during the 3rd quarter. Mizuho Securities USA LLC now owns 2,500,000 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $328,625,000 after purchasing an additional 2,467,316 shares in the last quarter. Nwam LLC bought a new stake in Phillips 66 during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $498,000. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of Phillips 66 by 2.8% in the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 530,807 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $69,775,000 after purchasing an additional 14,209 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 76.93% of the company’s stock.

Phillips 66 Company Profile

Phillips 66 operates as an energy manufacturing and logistics company in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Midstream, Chemicals, Refining, and Marketing and Specialties (M&S). The Midstream segment transports crude oil and other feedstocks; delivers refined petroleum products to market; provides terminaling and storage services for crude oil and refined petroleum products; transports, stores, fractionates, exports, and markets natural gas liquids; provides other fee-based processing services; and gathers, processes, transports, and markets natural gas.