Value Hunters: Look To CRH plc (CRH)

Fidelity Management & Research Co recently announced the acquisition of new stake in CRH plc (NYSE:CRH). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Basic Materials company by 3.25% to 7.94 million shares with purchase of 0.25 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 1.11% valued currently at $457.35 million. In addition, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings by 14486.0 to 4.34 million shares. And Morgan Stanley Investment Managem has lifted its position by 22.35% or 0.64 million shares – to 3.49 million shares.

With over 12.11 million CRH plc (CRH) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $53.51 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $647.97 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 11.20% and its price on 09/18/23 lost nearly -2.30%. Currently, there are 738.80M common shares owned by the public and among those 710.13M shares have been available to trade.

The top 3 mutual fund holders in CRH plc are Fidelity Inv. Trust – Series Inte, John Hancock III – Disciplined Va, and Fidelity Inv. Trust – Internation. Fidelity Inv. Trust – Series Inte owns 5.13 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $295.13 million. The company sold 9700.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 0.72% of the shares outstanding. John Hancock III – Disciplined Va sold 40604.0 shares to see its total holdings shrink to 2.09 million shares valued at over $120.22 million and representing 0.29% of the shares outstanding. Fidelity Inv. Trust – Internation bought 68100.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 1.9 million shares at a value of $109.29 million. Fidelity Inv. Trust – Internation now owns shares totaling to 0.27% of the shares outstanding.

Shares of CRH plc (NYSE: CRH) opened at $53.48, down -$1.29 from a prior closing price of $54.77. However, the script later moved the day high at 53.77, down -2.30%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -1.91% and 0.70% over the past three months. CRH shares are trading 34.48% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 51.59% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $31.22 and touched a high of $60.72 over the same period. CRH has an average intraday trading volume of 2.31 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by -4.65%, -6.68%, and 7.25% respectively.

Institutional ownership of CRH plc (NYSE: CRH) shares accounts for 5.60% of the company’s 738.80M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 3.03%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 5.36% and — respectively.

It has a market capitalization of $38.43B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.20. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 13.88, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $3.85. The company has a PEG of 1.36 and a Quick Ratio of 1.00 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.54. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.48% over the week and 1.79% over the month.

Analysts forecast that CRH plc (CRH) will achieve an EPS of $0 for the current quarter, $0 for the next quarter and $0 for 2008. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 10.20% over the next five years, compared to 12.10% over the past 5-year period.

If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 19 brokerage firm advisors rate CRH plc (CRH) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.00. Specifically, 14 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 1 of the 19 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”