Sanders Capital LLC recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Consumer Defensive company by 2.25% to 22.66 million shares with purchase of 0.5 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 3.15% valued currently at $1.03 billion. In addition, Harris Associates LP raised its holdings by 7.26 million to 17.18 million shares. And Geode Capital Management LLC has lifted its position by 3.00% or 0.42 million shares – to 14.32 million shares.
With over 10.51 million Kroger Co. (KR) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $42.44 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $446.25 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -14.50% and its price on 11/17/23 lost nearly -0.52%. Currently, there are 716.00M common shares owned by the public and among those 713.83M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 24 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for KR have a consensus price objective of $50.83. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $65.00 and a low of $37.00. The average price target is 16.51% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -14.7% over that period. But an upside of 34.71% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $51.75.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 127 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 63 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 1,165,002 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 64 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 753,719 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Kroger Co. are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 20.23 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $917.7 million. The company bought an additional 0.11 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 2.81% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 81155.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 14.95 million shares valued at over $678.32 million and representing 2.08% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund bought 34502.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 14.67 million shares at a value of $665.43 million. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.04% of the shares outstanding.
However, the script later moved the day high at 42.77, down -0.52%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -3.30% and -10.45% over the past three months. KR shares are trading -4.80% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -11.27% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $42.57 and touched a high of $50.41 over the same period. KR has an average intraday trading volume of 4.57 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 -4.47%, -5.25%, and -8.91% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) shares accounts for 82.68% of the company’s 716.00M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 41.08%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 42.32% and 2.50% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $30.53B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.46. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 19.02, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $2.23. The company has a PEG of 2.38 and a Quick Ratio of 0.36 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 1.87. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.88% over the week and 1.67% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Kroger Co. (KR) will achieve an EPS of $0.9 for the current quarter, $1.16 for the next quarter and $4.47 for 2025. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.83 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.94. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.88 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 6.62%, and -2.73% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 8.00% over the next five years, compared to 7.92% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 24 brokerage firm advisors rate Kroger Co. (KR) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.54. Specifically, 8 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 12 of the 24 advise that investors “hold,” and 3 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the KR, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. HSBC Securities stated their Hold rating for the stock in a research note on September 22, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $52.
