BlackRock Fund Advisors recently announced the acquisition of new stake in A.O. Smith Corp. (NYSE:AOS). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Industrials company by 5.43% to 6.77 million shares with purchase of 0.35 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 5.51% valued currently at $510.28 million. In addition, Impax Asset Management Ltd. raised its holdings by 88025.0 to 4.1 million shares. And Geode Capital Management LLC has lifted its position by 2.24% or 65095.0 shares – to 2.97 million shares.
With over 0.44 million A.O. Smith Corp. (AOS) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $81.73 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $35.82 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 15.19% and its price on 12/22/23 gained nearly 0.21%. Currently, there are 125.27M common shares owned by the public and among those 120.71M 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: 15 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for AOS have a consensus price objective of $79.10. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $90.00 and a low of $64.00. The average price target is -3.32% below its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -27.7% over that period. But an upside of 9.19% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $81.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 66 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 30 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 316,851 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 36 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 300,021 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in A.O. Smith Corp. are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund, and Vanguard 500 Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 3.91 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $294.61 million. The company bought an additional 4389.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.18% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund bought 12761.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 3.23 million shares valued at over $243.09 million and representing 2.63% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 13205.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 3.01 million shares at a value of $226.65 million. Vanguard 500 Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.45% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of A.O. Smith Corp. (NYSE: AOS) opened at $81.95, up $0.39 from a prior closing price of $81.56. However, the script later moved the day high at 82.03, up 0.21%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 3.19% and 26.77% over the past three months. AOS shares are trading 42.78% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 42.78% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $55.41 and touched a high of $81.57 over the same period. AOS has an average intraday trading volume of 1.05 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 4.79%, 10.58%, and 15.99% respectively.
Institutional ownership of A.O. Smith Corp. (NYSE: AOS) shares accounts for 77.92% of the company’s 125.27M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 54.17%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 9.62% and 42.42% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $12.15B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.25. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 41.44, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $1.97. The company has a PEG of 5.18 and a Quick Ratio of 1.10 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.09. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.23% over the week and 1.57% over the month.
Analysts forecast that A.O. Smith Corp. (AOS) will achieve an EPS of $0.94 for the current quarter, $0.97 for the next quarter and $4.01 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.91 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.98. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.86 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 19.99%, and 6.39% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 8.00% over the next five years, compared to -2.28% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 15 brokerage firm advisors rate A.O. Smith Corp. (AOS) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.73. Specifically, 4 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 9 of the 15 advise that investors “hold,” and 2 rated it as a “Sell.”
