HollyFrontier Corp. (HFC, Financial) has been upgraded by Deutsche Bank, which now suggests buying shares of the refining company. Prior to this rating, Deutsche Bank released a hold on shares of HollyFrontier.
The firm upgraded the refiner and set a new price target of $38 per share, which is $3 or 26.7% higher than the previous target price, because the firm “sees attractive leverage to key themes for the group including RINs relief, corporate tax cuts, widening of narrow inland differentials and limited exposure to potential import/export border tax adjustments,” said Ryan Todd, analyst at Deutsche Bank, as reported by StreetInsider.com
The analysts’ average target price is now $34.17, which ranges between a low target price of $30 and a high target price of $42.
Source: Yahoo Finance
The new target price set by Deutsche Bank is 11.2% higher than the average target price and represents a 18.7% upside from the current share price of $32.01.
Eleven out of a total of 16 analysts recommend to hold HollyFrontier and the recommendation rating is 2.8. The recommendation rating ranges between 1 (Strong Buy) and 5 (Sell).
For the current year, 13 analysts estimate earnings per share (EPS) of 70 cents on average, ranging between a low estimate of 49 cents and a high estimate of 95 cents and 18 of them estimate a 200% growth in 2017 EPS from 2016.
Source: Yahoo Finance
In the third quarter of 2016, HollyFrontier reported EPS of 38 cents, which represented a 5.60% surprise considering that analysts estimated EPS of 36 cents and a 79.1% decline on a year-over-year basis, mainly due to “lower refining margins,” according to the company's third-quarter 2016Â report.
2016 was not a positive year for HollyFrontier’s shareholders. The stock lost 17% in 2016.
Since the beginning of the new year the refining stock is following the same pattern that characterized 2016; year to date the stock lost 5% on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
HollyFrontier closed at $32.01 per share Friday, down $1.74 (or 5.16%) from the previous trading day, with 3,791,794 shares traded on the NYSE. The daily share price ranged between a low price of $31.98 and a high price of $33.90.
The average volume of shares traded on the stock market is 3.03 million over the last 10 trading days, and the average volume of shares traded over the last three months is 3.55 million. The 52-week range is between $22.07 per share and $39.17 per share. The P/E Ratio (TTM) is -15.82 and the EPS (TTM) -2.02.
The company distributes a total dividend of $1.32 per share to its shareholders through quarterly payments of 33 cents. The dividend yield is 4.12%.
HollyFrontier has a market capitalization of $5.63 billion and has 175.81 million shares outstanding. The percentage of shares held by insiders is 0.56% and by institutions is 82.70%. The number of shares available for trading is 174.75 million.
The company has approximately $478.16 million, or $2.72 per share, of cash on hand and securities that can be readily converted into cash. The total debt (mrq) is $1.67 billion and the book value per share (mrq) is $26.52. The cash flow generated by operations was $520.51 million over the twelve trailing months period.
During the third quarter of 2016, David Dreman (Trades, Portfolio) reduced his position in HollyFrontier by 99.61% and Keeley Asset Management Corp (Trades, Portfolio) increased its position by 17.53%.
Disclosure: I have no positions in HollyFrontier.
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