Investors Purchase Large Volume of Put Options on Nokia (NYSE:NOK)

Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK - Get Free Report) saw unusually large options trading on Monday. Investors bought 23,796 put options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 295% compared to the average volume of 6,031 put options.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Wall Street Zen upgraded Nokia from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a report on Wednesday, May 21st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $5.85.

Nokia Trading Up 0.1%

Shares of NOK traded up $0.01 during trading hours on Monday, hitting $5.20. 3,824,367 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 18,356,299. The company has a current ratio of 1.36, a quick ratio of 1.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11. Nokia has a 1-year low of $3.60 and a 1-year high of $5.48. The firm has a market capitalization of $27.95 billion, a PE ratio of 34.64 and a beta of 0.91. The business has a fifty day moving average of $5.21 and a 200-day moving average of $4.99.

Nokia (NYSE:NOK - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 24th. The technology company reported $0.03 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.05 by ($0.02). Nokia had a net margin of 4.09% and a return on equity of 8.73%. The firm had revenue of $4.98 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.47 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.09 EPS. The company's revenue was down 1.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Nokia will post 0.34 EPS for the current year.

Nokia Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, May 5th were paid a dividend of $0.0336 per share. This represents a $0.13 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.59%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, May 5th. This is a positive change from Nokia's previous quarterly dividend of $0.02. Nokia's dividend payout ratio is 80.00%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Nokia

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Acadian Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in Nokia in the first quarter valued at about $45,207,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its stake in Nokia by 8.7% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 12,550,274 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $66,140,000 after buying an additional 1,002,033 shares during the period. NewEdge Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Nokia by 6,204.9% in the first quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 60,464 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $319,000 after buying an additional 59,505 shares during the period. Millennium Management LLC lifted its stake in Nokia by 6,539.2% in the first quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 2,841,558 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $14,975,000 after buying an additional 2,798,758 shares during the period. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Nokia by 27.5% in the first quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 186,997 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $985,000 after buying an additional 40,276 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 5.28% of the company's stock.

Nokia Company Profile

Nokia Oyj provides mobile, fixed, and cloud network solutions worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Network Infrastructure, Mobile Networks, Cloud and Network Services, and Nokia Technologies. The company provides fixed networking solutions, such as fiber and copper-based access infrastructure, in-home Wi-Fi solutions, and cloud and virtualization services; IP networking solutions, including IP access, aggregation, and edge and core routing for residential, mobile, enterprise and cloud applications; optical networks solutions that provides optical transport networks for metro, regional, and long-haul applications, and subsea applications; and submarine networks for undersea cable transmission.

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