Stock Traders Buy High Volume of Sirius XM Call Options (NASDAQ:SIRI)

Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:SIRI - Get Free Report) saw unusually large options trading activity on Thursday. Investors bought 18,261 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 79% compared to the average daily volume of 10,208 call options.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Sirius XM news, Director Kristina Salen sold 1,651 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $22.27, for a total transaction of $36,767.77. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 15,471 shares in the company, valued at approximately $344,539.17. This represents a 9.64% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders own 3.32% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of SIRI. Opal Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Sirius XM in the first quarter valued at $25,000. Putney Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in Sirius XM in the fourth quarter valued at about $27,000. Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators boosted its holdings in shares of Sirius XM by 79.3% in the first quarter. Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators now owns 1,594 shares of the company's stock valued at $36,000 after buying an additional 705 shares during the period. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Sirius XM by 36.7% during the first quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,836 shares of the company's stock worth $41,000 after buying an additional 493 shares during the period. Finally, Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. boosted its position in shares of Sirius XM by 255.5% during the fourth quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. now owns 1,838 shares of the company's stock worth $42,000 after buying an additional 1,321 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 10.69% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have weighed in on SIRI. Seaport Res Ptn raised Sirius XM from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 8th. Barrington Research reaffirmed an "outperform" rating and issued a $28.00 price objective on shares of Sirius XM in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Guggenheim reissued a "buy" rating and issued a $29.00 price target on shares of Sirius XM in a research note on Thursday, June 26th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Sirius XM from $16.00 to $19.00 and gave the stock an "underweight" rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities lowered their target price on shares of Sirius XM from $24.00 to $22.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a report on Friday, May 2nd. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $26.42.

Sirius XM Price Performance

NASDAQ:SIRI traded up $0.32 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $24.27. 1,250,328 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,901,244. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $21.93 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $22.52. The company has a current ratio of 0.42, a quick ratio of 0.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.93. The company has a market capitalization of $8.20 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -3.72, a P/E/G ratio of 0.34 and a beta of 0.92. Sirius XM has a one year low of $18.69 and a one year high of $41.60.

Sirius XM (NASDAQ:SIRI - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 1st. The company reported $0.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $0.70 by ($0.11). Sirius XM had a negative net margin of 25.00% and a positive return on equity of 6.77%. The firm had revenue of $2.07 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.09 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.07 EPS. The firm's revenue was down 4.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Sirius XM will post 3.2 EPS for the current year.

Sirius XM Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, May 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 9th were paid a $0.27 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, May 9th. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.45%. Sirius XM's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently -16.56%.

Sirius XM Company Profile

Sirius XM Holdings Inc operates as an audio entertainment company in North America. It operates in two segments, Sirius XM, and Pandora and Off-platform. The company's Sirius XM segment provides music, sports, entertainment, comedy, talk, news, traffic and weather channels, and other content, as well as podcast and infotainment services on subscription fee basis; and live, curated, and exclusive and on demand programming services through satellite radio systems and streamed through applications for mobile and home devices, and other consumer electronic equipment.

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