Vest Financial LLC Sells 127,846 Shares of NOV Inc. $NOV

Vest Financial LLC cut its position in shares of NOV Inc. (NYSE:NOV) by 52.3% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 116,763 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock after selling 127,846 shares during the quarter. Vest Financial LLC’s holdings in NOV were worth $2,187,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the business. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new stake in NOV in the second quarter worth $697,976,000. Pzena Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NOV in the second quarter valued at approximately $674,776,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its holdings in shares of NOV by 2.3% in the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 19,404,319 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock worth $364,987,000 after buying an additional 431,684 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP raised its holdings in shares of NOV by 2.3% in the first quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 7,192,735 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $135,295,000 after acquiring an additional 158,788 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE raised its holdings in shares of NOV by 17.0% in the 1st quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 4,575,450 shares of the oil and gas exploration company’s stock valued at $86,064,000 after purchasing an additional 664,969 shares in the last quarter. 93.27% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts recently commented on NOV shares. Barclays reduced their price objective on shares of NOV from $21.00 to $20.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Susquehanna lifted their price objective on shares of NOV from $22.00 to $24.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. TD Cowen boosted their price objective on shares of NOV from $25.00 to $26.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Citigroup reduced their price objective on shares of NOV from $22.00 to $21.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, September 30th. Finally, Zacks Research cut shares of NOV from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 26th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, nine have given a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $21.23.

NOV Stock Up 5.7%

Shares of NOV stock opened at $19.83 on Friday. NOV Inc. has a 1-year low of $13.84 and a 1-year high of $21.93. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $20.05 and its 200 day moving average price is $19.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 2.42 and a quick ratio of 1.61. The company has a market cap of $7.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 76.28 and a beta of 0.97.

NOV (NYSE:NOV) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, July 28th. The oil and gas exploration company reported $0.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.14. The company had revenue of $2.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.08 billion. NOV had a return on equity of 3.44% and a net margin of 1.10%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 2.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.29 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that NOV Inc. will post 0.99 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

NOV Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 25th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 11th were given a dividend of $0.09 per share. This represents a $0.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, September 11th. NOV’s payout ratio is currently 138.46%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other NOV news, Director David Harrison sold 9,594 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, July 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $19.21, for a total transaction of $184,300.74. Following the transaction, the director owned 126,763 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,435,117.23. This represents a 7.04% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 1.15% of the company’s stock.

NOV Profile

NOV Inc (NYSE: NOV) is a Houston-based technology and equipment provider serving the global energy industry. The company develops and manufactures products and systems used in oil and natural gas drilling, well construction, completion and production operations.

Its offerings include land and offshore drilling rigs, rig equipment and components, downhole tools, drill pipe, wellbore technologies, pressure-control systems, and equipment used to enhance production. NOV also provides aftermarket parts, technical support, maintenance and other services designed to help energy companies operate and maintain their equipment.

The company was formed in 2005 through the merger of National Oilwell and Varco International, building on businesses with much longer histories in the oilfield equipment industry.