BlackRock Fund Advisors recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Western Union Company (NYSE:WU). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Financial company by 3.50% to 34.54 million shares with purchase of 1.17 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 9.48% valued currently at $401.74 million. In addition, Capital Research & Management Co raised its holdings by 8948.0 to 19.13 million shares. And Jupiter Asset Management Ltd. has lifted its position by 1.25% or 0.22 million shares – to 18.08 million shares.
With over 5.46 million Western Union Company (WU) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $12.15 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $66.33 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 2.79% and its price on 01/09/24 lost nearly -1.30%. Currently, there are 373.50M common shares owned by the public and among those 362.65M 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: 22 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for WU have a consensus price objective of $12.97. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $18.00 and a low of $10.00. The average price target is 6.32% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -21.5% over that period. But an upside of 32.5% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $13.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 45 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 23 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 537,090 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 22 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 125,114 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Western Union Company are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, American Mutual Fund, and Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 11.72 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $136.28 million. The company bought an additional 13157.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.22% of the shares outstanding. American Mutual Fund sold 23622.0 shares to see its total holdings shrink to 11.35 million shares valued at over $132.0 million and representing 3.12% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund bought 43034.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 9.7 million shares at a value of $112.84 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.66% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Western Union Company (NYSE: WU) opened at $12.28, down -$0.03 from a prior closing price of $12.31. However, the script later moved the day high at 12.36, down -1.30%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 0.16% and -7.67% over the past three months. WU shares are trading 1.93% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -13.71% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $10.07 and touched a high of $14.79 over the same period. WU has an average intraday trading volume of 4.86 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 1.65%, 2.68%, and 1.59% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Western Union Company (NYSE: WU) shares accounts for 93.60% of the company’s 373.50M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 40.58%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 53.87% and 2.11% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $4.43B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.84. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 6.14, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $1.98. The company has a PEG of 6.33 and the debt-to-equity ratio at 3.76. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.60% over the week and 2.00% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Western Union Company (WU) will achieve an EPS of $0.37 for the current quarter, $0.39 for the next quarter and $1.68 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.34 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.4. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.32 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -1.49%, and -3.04% over the next financial year.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 22 brokerage firm advisors rate Western Union Company (WU) as a “Hold” at a consensus score of 3.41. Specifically, 2 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 13 of the 22 advise that investors “hold,” and 6 rated it as a “Sell.”
