Sheaff Brock Investment Advisors LLC Acquires 268 Shares of Mplx Lp (NYSE:MPLX)

Sheaff Brock Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Mplx Lp (NYSE:MPLX) by 1.4% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 19,701 shares of the pipeline company’s stock after buying an additional 268 shares during the quarter. Sheaff Brock Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Mplx were worth $876,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the business. Tortoise Capital Advisors L.L.C. lifted its position in shares of Mplx by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Tortoise Capital Advisors L.L.C. now owns 14,825,905 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $631,435,000 after buying an additional 353,324 shares during the last quarter. ING Groep NV lifted its position in shares of Mplx by 69.8% during the 3rd quarter. ING Groep NV now owns 6,628,400 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $294,699,000 after buying an additional 2,725,000 shares during the last quarter. Chickasaw Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Mplx by 0.6% during the 3rd quarter. Chickasaw Capital Management LLC now owns 5,580,052 shares of the pipeline company’s stock worth $248,089,000 after buying an additional 34,659 shares during the last quarter. Energy Income Partners LLC raised its position in Mplx by 5.1% in the first quarter. Energy Income Partners LLC now owns 5,224,918 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $217,148,000 after purchasing an additional 255,211 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC raised its position in Mplx by 4.0% in the first quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 5,200,759 shares of the pipeline company’s stock valued at $216,144,000 after purchasing an additional 201,500 shares during the last quarter. 24.25% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have commented on MPLX shares. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on Mplx from $50.00 to $53.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. UBS Group increased their target price on Mplx from $51.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Barclays increased their target price on Mplx from $45.00 to $49.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. StockNews.com upgraded Mplx from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Bank of America assumed coverage on Mplx in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. They set an “underperform” rating and a $43.00 price objective for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $48.44.

Mplx Trading Up 1.4 %

NYSE MPLX opened at $47.06 on Friday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $44.51 and a 200 day simple moving average of $42.71. Mplx Lp has a one year low of $35.31 and a one year high of $47.62. The stock has a market capitalization of $48.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.10, a P/E/G ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 1.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.40, a current ratio of 0.99 and a quick ratio of 0.95.

Mplx (NYSE:MPLX) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, November 5th. The pipeline company reported $1.01 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.05 by ($0.04). Mplx had a return on equity of 32.70% and a net margin of 36.77%. The business had revenue of $2.97 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.09 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.89 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.1% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that Mplx Lp will post 4.31 earnings per share for the current year.

Mplx Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Friday, November 8th were given a dividend of $0.9565 per share. This is a boost from Mplx’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.85. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 8th. This represents a $3.83 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 8.13%. Mplx’s payout ratio is presently 90.09%.

Mplx Profile

MPLX LP owns and operates midstream energy infrastructure and logistics assets primarily in the United States. It operates in two segments, Logistics and Storage, and Gathering and Processing. The company is involved in the gathering, processing, and transportation of natural gas; gathering, transportation, fractionation, storage, and marketing of natural gas liquids; gathering, storage, transportation, and distribution of crude oil and refined products, as well as other hydrocarbon-based products and renewables; and sale of residue gas and condensate.