Wall Street Zen Downgrades Global Partners (NYSE:GLP) to Buy

Global Partners (NYSE:GLP) was downgraded by equities research analysts at Wall Street Zen from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued to investors on Sunday.

Other equities analysts have also recently issued research reports about the company. Zacks Research upgraded Global Partners from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 28th. Weiss Ratings upgraded Global Partners from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 12th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on Global Partners from $45.00 to $46.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, March 2nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $46.00.

Global Partners Price Performance

NYSE:GLP opened at $49.81 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.58, a quick ratio of 0.64 and a current ratio of 1.12. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $46.86 and its 200 day simple moving average is $45.54. The company has a market cap of $1.69 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.83 and a beta of 1.04. Global Partners has a 52-week low of $39.58 and a 52-week high of $56.51.

Global Partners (NYSE:GLP) last released its earnings results on Friday, May 8th. The energy company reported $1.85 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.33 by $1.52. The business had revenue of $5.32 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.98 billion. Global Partners had a return on equity of 24.23% and a net margin of 0.77%. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Global Partners will post 4.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Global Partners news, COO Mark Romaine sold 7,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $47.39, for a total transaction of $355,425.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 151,609 shares in the company, valued at $7,184,750.51. The trade was a 4.71% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Insiders have sold 24,063 shares of company stock worth $1,146,471 in the last three months. 41.50% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Alps Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in Global Partners by 4.9% in the fourth quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. now owns 5,999,844 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $251,093,000 after purchasing an additional 277,875 shares during the period. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. increased its holdings in Global Partners by 4.6% in the third quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 1,937,895 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $93,019,000 after purchasing an additional 85,347 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its holdings in Global Partners by 12.4% in the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 608,283 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $25,457,000 after purchasing an additional 67,337 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its holdings in Global Partners by 16.6% in the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 389,277 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $18,685,000 after purchasing an additional 55,304 shares during the period. Finally, UBS Group AG increased its holdings in Global Partners by 26.6% in the third quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 235,024 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $11,281,000 after purchasing an additional 49,319 shares during the period. 38.12% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Global Partners

Global Partners LP is a publicly traded master limited partnership engaged in the wholesale distribution and retail marketing of petroleum products. The company sources refined petroleum products from major refineries and suppliers and transports them through an integrated network of pipelines, terminals and storage facilities. Global Partners focuses on delivering fuel and related services to commercial, industrial and residential customers, positioning itself as a key midstream and downstream energy operator in its core markets.

Through its extensive terminal network in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada, Global Partners supplies gasoline, diesel, home heating oil, kerosene, propane and biofuels to a broad customer base.