T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Avantor Inc. (NYSE:AVTR). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Basic Materials company by 62.87% to 69.07 million shares with purchase of 26.66 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 10.24% valued currently at $1.39 billion. In addition, T. Rowe Price Investment Manageme raised its holdings by 57.61 million to 57.61 million shares. And The Vanguard Group, Inc. has lifted its position by 1.86% or 1.04 million shares – to 56.91 million shares.
With over 5.48 million Avantor Inc. (AVTR) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $21.31 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $116.68 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -33.49% and its price on 11/29/22 gained nearly 1.00%. Currently, there are 674.10M common shares owned by the public and among those 656.38M shares have been available to trade.
Top 5 Undervalued Stocks To Own In 2023
Microchip Maker Releases "World's Most Powerful Data Center CPU". It could allow the company who manufactures it to lead the industry as the global microchip shortage continues into the coming year. We've put together a free research report that explains all the details. Not only will you find out why analysts believe this chip manufacturer could lead the pack, you will also discover four more potential winners for the coming year.
Click here to download your Free Research Report…
Sponsored
An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 19 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for AVTR have a consensus price objective of $27.00. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $33.00 and a low of $23.00. The average price target is 19.25% above its recent price level and an upside to the estimated low will see the stock gain 7.35% over that period. But an upside of 35.42% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $27.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 80 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 36 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 396,144 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 44 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 592,960 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Avantor Inc. are Canada Pension Plan, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, and T Rowe Price Mid Cap Growth Fund. Canada Pension Plan owns 24.34 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $491.02 million. The company bought an additional 11.61 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.61% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index bought 89662.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 18.2 million shares valued at over $367.07 million and representing 2.70% of the shares outstanding. T Rowe Price Mid Cap Growth Fund bought 2.21 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 16.5 million shares at a value of $332.81 million. T Rowe Price Mid Cap Growth Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.45% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Avantor Inc. (NYSE: AVTR) opened at $21.03, down -$0.07 from a prior closing price of $21.10. However, the script later moved the day high at 21.45, up 1.00%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 2.85% and -14.69% over the past three months. AVTR shares are trading -49.43% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -46.43% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $17.91 and touched a high of $42.48 over the same period. AVTR has an average intraday trading volume of 7.00 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 3.73%, 4.28%, and -24.31% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Avantor Inc. (NYSE: AVTR) shares accounts for 91.80% of the company’s 674.10M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 5.92%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 51.90% and 39.68% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $14.06B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.37. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 23.92, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $0.89. The company has a PEG of 2.85 and a Quick Ratio of 1.10 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 1.35. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.61% over the week and 3.36% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Avantor Inc. (AVTR) will achieve an EPS of $0.33 for the current quarter, $0.35 for the next quarter and $1.53 for 2023. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.3 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.34. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.35 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 850.60%, and 1.72% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 8.40% over the next five years, compared to 66.20% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 19 brokerage firm advisors rate Avantor Inc. (AVTR) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.90. Specifically, 12 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 3 of the 19 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the AVTR, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Citigroup stated their Buy rating for the stock in a research note on October 05, 2022, with the firm’s price target at $28. Cowen coverage for the Avantor Inc. (AVTR) stock in a research note released on September 14, 2022 offered a Market Perform rating with a price target of $28. Cleveland Research was of a view on September 09, 2022 that the stock is Neutral, while Credit Suisse gave the stock Neutral rating on August 25, 2022, issuing a price target of $32. Citigroup on their part issued Neutral rating on April 04, 2022.
