Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. Reduces Position in Archrock, Inc. $AROC

Key Points

• Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. sold 81,335 shares of Archrock, reducing its stake by 3.4% to approximately 2.28 million shares, valued at $59.7 million.
• Archrock recently announced a quarterly dividend increase to $0.21 per share and approved a $50 million share repurchase program, indicating confidence in its stock valuation.
• The company reported a 41.6% revenue increase year-over-year, with earnings per share of $0.39 for the last quarter, surpassing analysts' expectations.

Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lessened its stake in shares of Archrock, Inc. (NYSE:AROC - Free Report) by 3.4% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 2,276,757 shares of the energy company's stock after selling 81,335 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. owned about 1.30% of Archrock worth $59,742,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of AROC. Farther Finance Advisors LLC raised its stake in Archrock by 164.8% in the first quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 964 shares of the energy company's stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 600 shares in the last quarter. Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc. bought a new position in Archrock in the first quarter worth approximately $33,000. TCTC Holdings LLC raised its stake in Archrock by 119.6% in the first quarter. TCTC Holdings LLC now owns 1,599 shares of the energy company's stock worth $42,000 after buying an additional 871 shares in the last quarter. Bayforest Capital Ltd bought a new position in Archrock in the first quarter worth approximately $47,000. Finally, Montag A & Associates Inc. raised its stake in Archrock by 57.3% in the first quarter. Montag A & Associates Inc. now owns 3,474 shares of the energy company's stock worth $91,000 after buying an additional 1,265 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 95.45% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently commented on AROC. Evercore ISI reduced their price objective on shares of Archrock from $32.00 to $31.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, August 6th. Sidoti raised shares of Archrock to a "hold" rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 7th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $28.40.

Archrock Stock Up 1.9%

NYSE AROC traded up $0.4680 on Wednesday, hitting $24.5880. The stock had a trading volume of 1,090,998 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,607,999. The business's fifty day moving average price is $23.86 and its 200 day moving average price is $24.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.86, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 1.30. Archrock, Inc. has a 52-week low of $18.38 and a 52-week high of $30.44. The stock has a market cap of $4.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.63, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 1.10.

Archrock (NYSE:AROC - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, August 4th. The energy company reported $0.39 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.37 by $0.02. Archrock had a net margin of 17.17% and a return on equity of 18.74%. The business had revenue of $383.15 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $366.34 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.23 earnings per share. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 41.6% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts anticipate that Archrock, Inc. will post 1.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Archrock Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, August 12th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, August 5th were issued a $0.21 dividend. This is an increase from Archrock's previous quarterly dividend of $0.19. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, August 5th. Archrock's dividend payout ratio is presently 63.64%.

Archrock announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase plan on Monday, May 5th that authorizes the company to buyback $50.00 million in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the energy company to purchase up to 1.2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually a sign that the company's board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Archrock

In other news, SVP Eric W. Thode sold 10,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $23.54, for a total transaction of $235,400.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president directly owned 224,809 shares of the company's stock, valued at $5,292,003.86. The trade was a 4.26% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 2.60% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

About Archrock

Archrock, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy infrastructure company in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Contract Operations and Aftermarket Services. It engages in the designing, sourcing, owning, installing, operating, servicing, repairing, and maintaining of its owned fleet of natural gas compression equipment to provide natural gas compression services.