Aflac Incorporated (AFL): Not A Time To Panic Nor Freeze

SSgA Funds Management, Inc. has recently announced that it has increased stake in Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL) by 1.34%. After grabbing 27.65 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 0.37 million shares of the Financial Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 4.58% having worth around $2.0 billion. Moreover, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its share by 30665.0 to have a control over 11.92 million shares.

Aflac Incorporated (AFL) concluded trading on 09/14/23 at a closing price of $77.31, with 2.85 million shares of worth about $220.72 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained positive as price took a surge of 26.24% during that period and on Thursday the price saw a gain of about 1.20%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 600.74M shares, out of which, 536.69M shares are available for trading.

A deeper look into what the analysts at Wall Street are thinking about the price target of this stock provides us with the following: 16 analysts are covering the AFL stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $76.28. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $86.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $58.00. The stock’s current price level is -2.02% below of average price target set by the analysts, while a dip to estimated low would result in loss of -33.29% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $86.00 would mean a gain of 10.1% for the stock.

According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), insiders took part in trade of the company’s stock for 88 times over the past 12 months. They bought 1,286,568 shares in 39 of the transactions. In 49 selling transactions, insiders dumped 592,158 shares.

Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and Fidelity 500 Index Fund are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in Aflac Incorporated Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF is currently holding 16.91 million shares of worth totaling $1.22 billion. The company recently came selling 77116.0 shares which brought its stake up to 2.80% of the company’s outstanding shares. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 73802.0 shares, after which its hold over company’s outstanding shares expand to 2.18%, leaving 13.17 million shares with the mutual fund that have a worth of about $952.4 million. Fidelity 500 Index Fund, after buying 6.25 million shares, have now control over 1.03% of the stake in the company. It holds 40086.0 shares of worth $452.06 million.

Aflac Incorporated (NYSE: AFL) started trading at $77.00, above $0.61 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 77.42, or with a gain of 1.20%. Stock saw a price change of 3.56% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of 2.09%. Year-to-date (YTD), AFL shares are showing a performance of 7.46% which increased to 27.18% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $56.03 but also hit the highest price of $78.43 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for Aflac Incorporated shares is 2.21 million. The stock is currently trading 3.41% above its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is up 4.92% for SMA50 and it goes to 11.05% higher than SMA200.

SSgA Funds Management, Inc. acquired 27.65 million shares of Aflac Incorporated having value of about $2.0 billion. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by SSgA Funds Management, Inc. revealed that the firm now holds 0.37 million shares in the company valued at close to $28322054.64, or have control over 1.34% stake in the company. Aflac Incorporated (NYSE: AFL) currently have 600.74M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 60.60% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 30.39% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 5.33% and 28.68% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $45.82B and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 0.93. PE ratio of stock for trailing 12 months is 10.35, while it has posted earnings per share of $7.47 in the same period. Its PEG reads 1.73 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for AFL, volatility over the week remained 1.09% while standing at 1.32% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that Aflac Incorporated (AFL) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $1.46 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $1.42 and it is $6.17 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $1.4 which is $1.5 at the higher side of the target for the same. When we compare those targets with actual EPS, we find that company posted an EPS of $1.15 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to rise by 3.10% while it is estimated to increase by 2.92% in next year. EPS is likely to shrink at an annualized rate of 6.00% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of 14.50% made by the stock over the past 5-years.

Analysts at 16 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the Aflac Incorporated (AFL)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Moderate Buy” and assign it a score of 2.80. Out of those 16 Wall Street analysts, 2 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 12 were in favor recommending the stock as a “Hold” and 1 analyst recommended the stock as “Sell”.

Digging deeper we find that several firms have released their research notes about the support levels of the stock. Most recent of them is a note released by Morgan Stanley on August 18, 2023 offering an Equal-weight rating for the stock and assigned a target price range of between $74 and $75 to it.