SSgA Funds Management, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Warner Bros. Discovery Inc (NASDAQ:WBD). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Communication Services company by 0.28% to 118.67 million shares with purchase of 0.33 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 4.87% valued currently at $1.24 billion. In addition, BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings by 0.73 million to 109.07 million shares. And Harris Associates LP has lifted its position by 0.18% or 0.12 million shares – to 64.48 million shares.
With over 20.61 million Warner Bros. Discovery Inc (WBD) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $11.27 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $232.24 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -4.33% and its price on 12/22/23 lost nearly -1.91%. Currently, there are 2.43B common shares owned by the public and among those 2.21B shares have been available to trade.
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Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 65 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 38 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 2,105,069 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 27 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 988,578 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Warner Bros. Discovery Inc are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 68.79 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $718.88 million. The company bought an additional 86813.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 2.82% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 0.24 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 53.54 million shares valued at over $559.51 million and representing 2.20% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund bought 0.11 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 49.8 million shares at a value of $520.42 million. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.04% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc (NASDAQ: WBD) opened at $11.50, up $0.01 from a prior closing price of $11.49. However, the script later moved the day high at 11.63, down -1.91%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -8.08% and 5.72% over the past three months. WBD shares are trading 18.88% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 24.67% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $8.82 and touched a high of $16.34 over the same period. WBD has an average intraday trading volume of 22.71 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 -0.73%, 4.54%, and -8.32% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc (NASDAQ: WBD) shares accounts for 60.39% of the company’s 2.43B shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 35.33%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 9.12% and 25.61% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $27.48B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.58. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$1.98. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 5.82% over the week and 4.85% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Warner Bros. Discovery Inc (WBD) will achieve an EPS of -$0.06 for the current quarter, -$0.28 for the next quarter and -$0.1 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$0.19 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.14. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was -$0.86 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 70.69%, and 84.66% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 20.00% over the next five years, compared to -38.19% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 29 brokerage firm advisors rate Warner Bros. Discovery Inc (WBD) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.90. Specifically, 16 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 10 of the 29 advise that investors “hold,” and 1 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the WBD, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Seaport Research Partners stated their Buy rating for the stock in a research note on October 06, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $19.
