ProShare Advisors LLC Boosts Position in Arko Corp. (NASDAQ:ARKO)

ProShare Advisors LLC grew its position in Arko Corp. (NASDAQ:ARKO) by 49.0% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 22,671 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 7,459 shares during the quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC’s holdings in Arko were worth $149,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Arko by 24.0% in the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 766,295 shares of the company’s stock valued at $5,050,000 after purchasing an additional 148,269 shares in the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in Arko during the fourth quarter worth $66,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Arko in the fourth quarter worth $368,000. CM Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Arko by 2.9% in the fourth quarter. CM Management LLC now owns 1,050,000 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,920,000 after acquiring an additional 30,000 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Intech Investment Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Arko by 114.7% in the fourth quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 30,073 shares of the company’s stock valued at $198,000 after acquiring an additional 16,069 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 78.29% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have issued reports on ARKO. Raymond James reduced their target price on shares of Arko from $11.00 to $10.00 and set a “strong-buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, May 9th. Stifel Nicolaus downgraded shares of Arko from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $8.50 to $7.50 in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on shares of Arko from $4.50 to $5.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Monday, May 12th. Wall Street Zen cut shares of Arko from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, Capital One Financial started coverage on Arko in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. They set an “overweight” rating and a $8.00 price target on the stock. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Arko currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $7.35.

Arko Price Performance

Arko stock opened at $4.13 on Tuesday. Arko Corp. has a 1 year low of $3.51 and a 1 year high of $7.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.86, a quick ratio of 1.13 and a current ratio of 1.63. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $4.31 and a 200 day moving average price of $5.62. The company has a market cap of $473.63 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.81 and a beta of 0.72.

Arko (NASDAQ:ARKO) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 8th. The company reported ($0.12) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.17) by $0.05. The company had revenue of $1.83 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.85 billion. Arko had a net margin of 0.27% and a return on equity of 8.88%. Sell-side analysts predict that Arko Corp. will post 0.2 earnings per share for the current year.

Arko Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, May 19th were issued a $0.03 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, May 19th. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.91%. Arko’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 400.00%.

About Arko

Arko Corp. operates convenience stores in the United States. It operates through Retail, Wholesale, Fleet Fueling, and GPMP segments. The Retail segment engages in the sale of fuel and merchandise to retail consumers. Its Wholesale segment supplies fuel to third-party dealers and consignment agents. The Fleet Fueling segment supplies fuel to proprietary and third-party cardlock, and issuance of proprietary fuel cards.