BlackRock Fund Advisors recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Fastenal Co. (NASDAQ:FAST). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Industrials company by 0.46% to 31.0 million shares with purchase of 0.14 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 5.42% valued currently at $2.01 billion. In addition, SSgA Funds Management, Inc. raised its holdings by 0.64 million to 28.11 million shares. And Geode Capital Management LLC has lifted its position by 2.03% or 0.29 million shares – to 14.41 million shares.
Currently, there are 571.98M common shares owned by the public and among those 570.26M shares have been available to trade.
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Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 21 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 11 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 161,316 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 10 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 159,335 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Fastenal Co. are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 17.92 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $1.16 billion. The company bought an additional 17167.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.14% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 26632.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 13.95 million shares valued at over $903.64 million and representing 2.44% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund sold -0.18 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 12.81 million shares at a value of $829.57 million. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.24% of the shares outstanding.
However, the script later moved the day high at 70.10, down -0.57%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 9.00% and 21.41% over the past three months. FAST shares are trading 7.32% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 42.75% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $48.07 and touched a high of $69.94 over the same period. FAST has an average intraday trading volume of 3.59 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 7.77%, 11.02%, and 20.90% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Fastenal Co. (NASDAQ: FAST) shares accounts for 81.60% of the company’s 571.98M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 44.42%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 6.47% and 38.00% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $39.72B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.04. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 34.56, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $2.01. The company has a PEG of 5.46 and a Quick Ratio of 2.27 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.16. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.57% over the week and 1.49% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Fastenal Co. (FAST) will achieve an EPS of $0.53 for the current quarter, $0.56 for the next quarter and $2.35 for 2025. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.52 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.55. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.52 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 6.67%, and 8.44% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 6.33% over the next five years, compared to 9.06% over the past 5-year period.
Looking at the support for the FAST, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. HSBC Securities stated their Hold rating for the stock in a research note on September 15, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $59.
