Nokia Oyj Sees Unusually High Options Volume (NYSE:NOK)

Nokia Oyj (NYSE:NOK) saw unusually large options trading on Monday. Stock investors bought 10,704 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 61% compared to the average volume of 6,667 call options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Nokia Oyj

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in NOK. Artisan Partners Limited Partnership increased its holdings in Nokia Oyj by 5.0% in the fourth quarter. Artisan Partners Limited Partnership now owns 106,769,682 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $365,152,000 after purchasing an additional 5,087,927 shares during the last quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in Nokia Oyj by 22.3% in the fourth quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC now owns 52,313,442 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $178,912,000 after purchasing an additional 9,522,186 shares during the last quarter. Walleye Capital LLC bought a new stake in Nokia Oyj in the third quarter valued at about $12,591,000. FMR LLC increased its holdings in Nokia Oyj by 4.3% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 2,181,834 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $8,160,000 after purchasing an additional 90,895 shares during the last quarter. Finally, BNP Paribas Financial Markets increased its holdings in Nokia Oyj by 379.3% in the fourth quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 1,493,893 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $5,109,000 after purchasing an additional 1,182,184 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 5.28% of the company’s stock.

Nokia Oyj Price Performance

Nokia Oyj stock opened at $3.68 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $20.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.00, a P/E/G ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 1.09. Nokia Oyj has a 52 week low of $2.94 and a 52 week high of $4.36. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 1.40 and a current ratio of 1.64. The business’s fifty day moving average is $3.54 and its two-hundred day moving average is $3.47.

Nokia Oyj (NYSE:NOK) last released its earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The technology company reported $0.11 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.14 by ($0.03). The firm had revenue of $6.15 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.66 billion. Nokia Oyj had a return on equity of 8.39% and a net margin of 3.90%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.16 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Nokia Oyj will post 0.38 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Nokia Oyj Cuts Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 8th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, April 23rd will be given a dividend of $0.0323 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, April 22nd. This represents a $0.13 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.51%. Nokia Oyj’s payout ratio is currently 56.25%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have commented on NOK shares. Barclays downgraded Nokia Oyj from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 19th. BNP Paribas started coverage on Nokia Oyj in a research report on Friday, January 12th. They issued a “neutral” rating on the stock. StockNews.com raised Nokia Oyj from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, April 19th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on Nokia Oyj from $4.39 to $4.26 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, April 16th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Nokia Oyj currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $4.42.

About Nokia Oyj

Nokia Oyj provides mobile, fixed, and cloud network solutions worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Network Infrastructure, Mobile Networks, Cloud and Network Services, and Nokia Technologies. The company provides fixed networking solutions, such as fiber and copper-based access infrastructure, in-home Wi-Fi solutions, and cloud and virtualization services; IP networking solutions, including IP access, aggregation, and edge and core routing for residential, mobile, enterprise and cloud applications; optical networks solutions that provides optical transport networks for metro, regional, and long-haul applications, and subsea applications; and submarine networks for undersea cable transmission.