The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Kraft Heinz Co (NASDAQ:KHC). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Consumer Defensive company by 0.48% to 66.73 million shares with purchase of 0.32 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 5.44% valued currently at $2.34 billion. In addition, BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings by 0.54 million to 38.43 million shares. And SSgA Funds Management, Inc. has lifted its position by 0.20% or 73528.0 shares – to 37.15 million shares.
With over 4.07 million Kraft Heinz Co (KHC) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $36.50 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $148.69 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 2.59% and its price on 12/26/23 gained nearly 0.39%. Currently, there are 1.23B common shares owned by the public and among those 1.12B 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: 23 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for KHC have a consensus price objective of $38.36. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $43.00 and a low of $33.00. The average price target is 4.85% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -10.61% over that period. But an upside of 15.12% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $38.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 86 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 47 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 885,535 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 39 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 1,092,325 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Kraft Heinz Co are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Invesco QQQ Trust, and Vanguard 500 Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 24.99 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $877.41 million. The company bought an additional 30754.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 2.04% of the shares outstanding. Invesco QQQ Trust sold 72466.0 shares to see its total holdings shrink to 21.37 million shares valued at over $750.23 million and representing 1.74% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 0.1 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 19.29 million shares at a value of $677.33 million. Vanguard 500 Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 1.57% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Kraft Heinz Co (NASDAQ: KHC) opened at $36.35, down -$0.01 from a prior closing price of $36.36. However, the script later moved the day high at 36.54, up 0.39%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -0.57% and 5.80% over the past three months. KHC shares are trading -10.34% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -9.56% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $30.68 and touched a high of $42.80 over the same period. KHC has an average intraday trading volume of 8.15 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 0.99%, 7.17%, and 1.86% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Kraft Heinz Co (NASDAQ: KHC) shares accounts for 78.07% of the company’s 1.23B shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 48.55%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 9.97% and 29.75% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $44.77B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.68. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 15.08, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $2.42. The company has a PEG of 2.93 and a Quick Ratio of 0.52 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.40. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.15% over the week and 1.49% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Kraft Heinz Co (KHC) will achieve an EPS of $0.7 for the current quarter, $0.63 for the next quarter and $2.75 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.67 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.73. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.85 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 6.60%, and 2.25% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 5.14% over the next five years, compared to -26.48% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 23 brokerage firm advisors rate Kraft Heinz Co (KHC) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.13. Specifically, 9 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 12 of the 23 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the KHC, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Evercore ISI stated their Outperform rating for the stock in a research note on December 11, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $40-$42.
