BlackRock Fund Advisors recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Ferguson Plc. (NYSE:FERG). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Industrials company by 0.11% to 8.57 million shares with purchase of 9753.0 shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 4.21% valued currently at $1.66 billion. In addition, Fidelity Management & Research Co raised its holdings by 0.11 million to 6.3 million shares. And SSgA Funds Management, Inc. has lifted its position by 5.61% or 0.21 million shares – to 3.96 million shares.
With over 0.47 million Ferguson Plc. (FERG) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $187.17 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $87.56 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 16.34% and its price on 01/12/24 gained nearly 0.42%. Currently, there are 204.00M common shares owned by the public and among those 202.83M shares have been available to trade.
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Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 157 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 68 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 240,798 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 89 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 61,705 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Ferguson Plc. are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP, and Government Pension Fund – Global. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 6.39 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $1.23 billion. The company bought an additional 7641.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.14% of the shares outstanding. Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP sold -0.28 million shares to see its total holdings shrink to 6.37 million shares valued at over $1.23 billion and representing 3.13% of the shares outstanding. Government Pension Fund – Global bought 0.81 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 4.8 million shares at a value of $925.99 million. Government Pension Fund – Global now owns shares totaling to 2.36% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Ferguson Plc. (NYSE: FERG) opened at $187.84, up $1.45 from a prior closing price of $186.39. However, the script later moved the day high at 188.23, up 0.42%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 0.01% and 11.19% over the past three months. FERG shares are trading -3.06% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 36.85% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $123.17 and touched a high of $194.13 over the same period. FERG has an average intraday trading volume of 1.10 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 -0.83%, 6.88%, and 19.12% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Ferguson Plc. (NYSE: FERG) shares accounts for 81.87% of the company’s 204.00M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 23.26%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 60.29% and 0.13% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $38.20B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.21. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 21.24, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $8.81. The company has a PEG of 3.03 and a Quick Ratio of 0.97 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.98. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.22% over the week and 1.35% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Ferguson Plc. (FERG) will achieve an EPS of $1.84 for the current quarter, $2.32 for the next quarter and $10.76 for 2025. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $1.75 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $1.94. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $1.91 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -1.88%, and 10.51% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 7.00% over the next five years, compared to 22.02% 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 Ferguson Plc. (FERG) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.04. Specifically, 12 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 6 of the 23 advise that investors “hold,” and 1 rated it as a “Sell.”
