Stock Traders Purchase Large Volume of Call Options on Warner Music Group (NASDAQ:WMG)

Warner Music Group Corp. (NASDAQ:WMG - Get Free Report) was the target of some unusual options trading activity on Wednesday. Investors acquired 8,171 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 3,453% compared to the average volume of 230 call options.

Institutional Trading of Warner Music Group

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in Warner Music Group by 5.4% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 953,549 shares of the company's stock worth $29,560,000 after buying an additional 48,772 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its holdings in Warner Music Group by 5,272.3% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 95,304 shares of the company's stock worth $3,040,000 after buying an additional 93,530 shares in the last quarter. DigitalBridge Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Warner Music Group by 29.7% during the fourth quarter. DigitalBridge Group Inc. now owns 896,445 shares of the company's stock worth $27,790,000 after buying an additional 205,529 shares in the last quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC boosted its holdings in Warner Music Group by 88.0% during the first quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 59,437 shares of the company's stock worth $1,863,000 after buying an additional 27,821 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC boosted its holdings in Warner Music Group by 43.5% during the fourth quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC now owns 7,920,342 shares of the company's stock worth $245,531,000 after buying an additional 2,400,500 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 96.88% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Warner Music Group from $32.00 to $33.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Monday, July 7th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Warner Music Group to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. Bank of America upgraded shares of Warner Music Group from an "underperform" rating to a "neutral" rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $28.00 to $33.00 in a research note on Wednesday. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered shares of Warner Music Group from a "buy" rating to a "neutral" rating and cut their price target for the stock from $35.00 to $28.00 in a research note on Monday, May 12th. Finally, Guggenheim cut their price target on shares of Warner Music Group from $40.00 to $37.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, May 9th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Warner Music Group currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $34.35.

Warner Music Group Stock Performance

NASDAQ WMG traded down $0.16 during trading on Friday, reaching $29.77. The company's stock had a trading volume of 1,222,243 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,777,474. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.43, a quick ratio of 0.64 and a current ratio of 0.66. The firm has a market cap of $15.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.22, a P/E/G ratio of 1.14 and a beta of 1.24. Warner Music Group has a twelve month low of $25.56 and a twelve month high of $36.64. The business's fifty day moving average price is $27.38 and its 200-day moving average price is $30.11.

Warner Music Group (NASDAQ:WMG - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The company reported $0.07 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.28 by ($0.21). The firm had revenue of $1.48 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $1.52 billion. Warner Music Group had a net margin of 7.14% and a return on equity of 64.64%. The firm's revenue was down .7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.18 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that Warner Music Group will post 1.39 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Warner Music Group Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, June 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, May 27th were issued a $0.18 dividend. This represents a $0.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.42%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, May 27th. Warner Music Group's payout ratio is 82.76%.

About Warner Music Group

Warner Music Group Corp. operates as a music entertainment company in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and internationally. It operates through Recorded Music and Music Publishing segments. The Recorded Music segment is involved in the discovery and development of recording artists, as well as related marketing, promotion, distribution, sale, and licensing of music created by such recording artists; markets its music catalog through compilations and reissuances of previously released music and video titles, as well as previously unreleased materials; and conducts its operation primarily through a collection of record labels, such as Warner Records and Atlantic Records, as well as Asylum, Big Beat, Canvasback, East West, Erato, FFRR, Fueled by Ramen, Nonesuch, Parlophone, Reprise, Roadrunner, Sire, Spinnin' Records, Warner Classics, and Warner Music Nashville.