The market drained the energy from energy stock Equinor (NYSE: EQNR) on Tuesday. Rather than movement on company news, the Norwegian oil and gas major took a hit when an analyst tracking its stock cut his price target. By the end of the day's trading session, Equinor's share price had withered by almost 5%, comparing unfavorably with the relatively modest 2.2% decline of the S&P 500 index.
Cutting while maintaining
The person behind the reduction was JPMorgan Chase pundit Christyan Malek. Well before the opening of the U.S. market, Malek lowered his Equinor price target by 10 Norwegian kroner ($9) to 250 kroner ($24). As he did so, he maintained his underweight (sell, in other words) recommendation on the energy stock .
The reasoning behind Malek's move wasn't immediately apparent. However, it's not the first such adjustment by an analyst in recent days. This past Friday, Malek's peer Martijn Rats at Morgan Stanley also got more bearish on Equinor's future.
Rats went as far as to downgrade his recommendation on the company, changing it to underweight from his previous equal weight (hold) as he cut the target price to 270 krone ($25) from 305 krone ($29).
The dividend may not be worth it
The Morgan Stanley pundit's new assessment was based heavily on Equinor's dividend. Rats wrote in his latest research note that the company aims to raise its quarterly payout by the equivalent of $0.02 every year, which by the end of the decade should place it at $1.90 per share. However, this analysis indicated the present value of the energy company's future dividend stream is 6% below the current level. This, according to Rats, is "consistent with our underweight rating."
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