Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Plug Power Inc (NASDAQ:PLUG). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Industrials company by 156.37% to 17.78 million shares with purchase of 10.85 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 2.94% valued currently at $71.85 million. In addition, Norges Bank Investment Management raised its holdings by 6.28 million to 17.07 million shares. And Geode Capital Management LLC has lifted its position by 2.62% or 0.22 million shares – to 8.48 million shares.
With over 19.36 million Plug Power Inc (PLUG) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $4.50 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $87.1 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -56.69% and its price on 12/29/23 lost nearly -4.46%. Currently, there are 590.35M common shares owned by the public and among those 539.44M 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: 31 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for PLUG have a consensus price objective of $8.59. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $25.00 and a low of $2.30. The average price target is 47.61% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -95.65% over that period. But an upside of 82.0% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $6.50.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 55 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 44 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 406,254 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 11 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 334,560 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Plug Power Inc are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Government Pension Fund – Global, and Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 18.84 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $76.13 million. The company bought an additional 27808.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.11% of the shares outstanding. Government Pension Fund – Global bought 9.66 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 16.94 million shares valued at over $68.43 million and representing 2.80% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund bought 47810.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 15.58 million shares at a value of $62.94 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.57% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Plug Power Inc (NASDAQ: PLUG) opened at $4.70, down -$0.01 from a prior closing price of $4.71. However, the script later moved the day high at 4.7200, down -4.46%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 2.04% and -40.79% over the past three months. PLUG shares are trading -63.62% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -61.57% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $3.22 and touched a high of $18.88 over the same period. PLUG has an average intraday trading volume of 35.44 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 2.66%, -6.98%, and -45.52% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Plug Power Inc (NASDAQ: PLUG) shares accounts for 53.73% of the company’s 590.35M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 22.12%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 32.68% and 1.26% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $2.72B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.65. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$1.60. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 5.72% over the week and 8.11% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Plug Power Inc (PLUG) will achieve an EPS of -$0.32 for the current quarter, -$0.27 for the next quarter and -$0.89 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$0.51 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of -$0.11. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was -$0.38 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -21.20%, and 42.59% over the next financial year.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 31 brokerage firm advisors rate Plug Power Inc (PLUG) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.42. Specifically, 11 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 16 of the 31 advise that investors “hold,” and 2 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the PLUG, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Piper Sandler stated their Underweight rating for the stock in a research note on December 19, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $6.50-$2.30.
