The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Bread Financial Holdings Inc (NYSE:BFH). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Financial company by 0.17% to 5.61 million shares with purchase of 9706.0 shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 11.37% valued currently at $184.79 million. In addition, BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings by 0.1 million to 4.47 million shares. And Dimensional Fund Advisors LP has lifted its position by 9.97% or 0.25 million shares – to 2.74 million shares.
With over 0.48 million Bread Financial Holdings Inc (BFH) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $31.42 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $15.1 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -9.84% and its price on 01/12/24 lost nearly -4.00%. Currently, there are 49.90M common shares owned by the public and among those 48.48M shares have been available to trade.
An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 18 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for BFH have a consensus price objective of $34.85. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $53.00 and a low of $25.00. The average price target is 9.84% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -25.68% over that period. But an upside of 40.72% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $34.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 110 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 96 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 878,597 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 14 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 37,540 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Bread Financial Holdings Inc are iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, and Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF owns 1.78 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $58.69 million. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF bought 2381.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 1.55 million shares valued at over $50.91 million and representing 3.13% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund bought 3991.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 1.3 million shares at a value of $42.79 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.63% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Bread Financial Holdings Inc (NYSE: BFH) opened at $33.15, up $0.42 from a prior closing price of $32.73. However, the script later moved the day high at 33.26, down -4.00%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -3.35% and -1.78% over the past three months. BFH shares are trading -4.61% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -19.62% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $23.19 and touched a high of $44.52 over the same period. BFH has an average intraday trading volume of 670.31K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by -5.09%, 3.91%, and -1.05% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Bread Financial Holdings Inc (NYSE: BFH) shares accounts for 105.24% of the company’s 49.90M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 50.19%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 55.76% and 21.37% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $1.55B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.93. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 2.92, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $10.76. The company has a PEG of 0.56 and the debt-to-equity ratio at 1.47. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 3.44% over the week and 3.72% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Bread Financial Holdings Inc (BFH) will achieve an EPS of -$0.9 for the current quarter, $2.85 for the next quarter and $7.9 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$1.92 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.17. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was -$2.68 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 180.13%, and -36.76% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 5.17% over the next five years, compared to -20.57% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 18 brokerage firm advisors rate Bread Financial Holdings Inc (BFH) as a “Hold” at a consensus score of 3.06. Specifically, 3 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 10 of the 18 advise that investors “hold,” and 4 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the BFH, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. BMO Capital Markets stated their Market Perform rating for the stock in a research note on January 10, 2024, with the firm’s price target at $33.
