BlackRock Fund Advisors has recently announced that it has increased stake in Leslie’s Inc. (NASDAQ:LESL) by 249.26%. After grabbing 18.35 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 13.09 million shares of the Consumer Cyclical Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 10.03% having worth around $257.6 million. Moreover, Champlain Investment Partners LLC increased its share by 0.32 million to have a control over 14.77 million shares. And The Vanguard Group, Inc. raised its holdings to 2.38 million shares by acquiring 14.24 million shares or 7.78% of the stake.
Leslie’s Inc. (LESL) concluded trading on 11/30/22 at a closing price of $14.60, with 9.2 million shares of worth about $134.39 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained negative as price took a plunge of -24.59% during that period and on Wednesday the price saw a loss of about -3.05%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 182.94M shares, out of which, 175.87M shares are available for trading.
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According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), insiders took part in trade of the company’s stock for 21 times over the past 12 months. They bought 611,333 shares in 16 of the transactions. In 5 selling transactions, insiders dumped 21,883,031 shares.
iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, American Funds Small Cap World Fu, and Champlain Mid Cap Fund are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in Leslie’s Inc. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF is currently holding 10.98 million shares of worth totaling $154.11 million. The company recently came buying 7472.0 shares which brought its stake up to 6.00% of the company’s outstanding shares. American Funds Small Cap World Fu sold -3.17 million shares, after which its hold over company’s outstanding shares shrunk to 3.82%, leaving 6.99 million shares with the mutual fund that have a worth of about $98.18 million. Champlain Mid Cap Fund, after selling 5.5 million shares, have now control over 3.01% of the stake in the company. It holds -0.1 million shares of worth $77.22 million.
Leslie’s Inc. (NASDAQ: LESL) started trading at $13.82, below -$1.24 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 15.22, or with a loss of -3.05%. Stock saw a price change of -6.17% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of 3.99%. Year-to-date (YTD), LESL shares are showing a performance of -38.29% which decreased to -30.34% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $12.79 but also hit the highest price of $24.40 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for Leslie’s Inc. shares is 3.18 million. The stock is currently trading -2.35% below its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is up 0.49% for SMA50 and it goes to -13.87% lower than SMA200.
BlackRock Fund Advisors acquired 18.35 million shares of Leslie’s Inc. having value of about $257.6 million. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by BlackRock Fund Advisors revealed that the firm now holds 13.09 million shares in the company valued at close to $191178269.2, or have control over 249.26% stake in the company. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 62.23% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 97.56% and 48.84% of the stake respectively.
The stock has a current market capitalization of $2.70B. PE ratio of stock for trailing 12 months is 18.69, while it has posted earnings per share of $0.78 in the same period. Its PEG reads 1.93 and has Quick Ratio of 0.60. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for LESL, volatility over the week remained 5.51% while standing at 5.01% over the month.
Analysts are in expectations that Leslie’s Inc. (LESL) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $0.31 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is -$0.08 and it is $1 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $0.26 which is $0.35 at the higher side of the target for the same. When we compare those targets with actual EPS, we find that company posted an EPS of $0.26 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to rise by 112.40% while it is estimated to increase by 6.88% in next year.
Analysts at 7 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the Leslie’s Inc. (LESL)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Strong Buy” and assign it a score of 1.80. Out of those 7 Wall Street analysts, 3 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 4 were in favor recommending the stock as a “Hold” and 0 analyst recommended the stock as “Sell”.
Digging deeper we find that several firms have released their research notes about the support levels of the stock. Most recent of them is a note released by Robert W. Baird on November 15, 2022 offering a Neutral rating for the stock and assigned a target price range of between $18 and $16 to it. Coverage by MKM Partners stated Leslie’s Inc. (LESL) stock as a Neutral in their note to investors on October 04, 2022, suggesting a price target of $14 for the stock. On August 08, 2022, Telsey Advisory Group Downgrade their recommendations, while on June 23, 2022, Loop Capital Downgrade their ratings for the stock with a price target of $16. Stock get a Buy rating from Goldman on April 04, 2022.
