Johnson Controls International plc (JCI) Outlook Starting To Look Brighter?

Dodge & Cox has recently announced that it has increased stake in Johnson Controls International plc (NYSE:JCI) by 0.04%. After grabbing 64.8 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 26427.0 shares of the Industrials Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 9.41% having worth around $3.75 billion. Moreover, The Vanguard Group, Inc. increased its share by 0.23 million to have a control over 56.96 million shares. And Massachusetts Financial Services raised its holdings to 0.37 million shares by acquiring 39.75 million shares or 5.77% of the stake.

Johnson Controls International plc (JCI) concluded trading on 11/30/22 at a closing price of $66.44, with 7.9 million shares of worth about $524.93 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained positive as price took a surge of 23.04% during that period and on Wednesday the price saw a gain of about 1.59%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 688.60M shares, out of which, 685.25M shares are available for trading.

A deeper look into what the analysts at Wall Street are thinking about the price target of this stock provides us with the following: 23 analysts are covering the JCI stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $69.21. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $85.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $60.00. The stock’s current price level is 2.52% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in loss of -10.73% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $85.00 would mean a gain of 21.84% for the stock.

According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), insiders took part in trade of the company’s stock for 95 times over the past 12 months. They bought 1,295,089 shares in 39 of the transactions. In 56 selling transactions, insiders dumped 982,106 shares.

Dodge & Cox Stock Fund, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, and Vanguard Wellington Fund are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in Johnson Controls International plc Dodge & Cox Stock Fund is currently holding 32.51 million shares of worth totaling $1.88 billion. The company recently came selling 73000.0 shares which brought its stake up to 4.72% of the company’s outstanding shares. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index bought 97725.0 shares, after which its hold over company’s outstanding shares expand to 3.00%, leaving 20.67 million shares with the mutual fund that have a worth of about $1.2 billion. Vanguard Wellington Fund, after buying 17.88 million shares, have now control over 2.60% of the stake in the company. It holds 1.68 million shares of worth $1.03 billion.

Johnson Controls International plc (NYSE: JCI) started trading at $65.26, below -$0.14 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 66.69, or with a gain of 1.59%. Stock saw a price change of -1.69% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of 14.87%. Year-to-date (YTD), JCI shares are showing a performance of -18.29% which decreased to -11.13% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $45.52 but also hit the highest price of $81.77 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for Johnson Controls International plc shares is 4.15 million. The stock is currently trading 2.61% above its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is up 15.57% for SMA50 and it goes to 16.65% higher than SMA200.

Dodge & Cox acquired 64.8 million shares of Johnson Controls International plc having value of about $3.75 billion. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by Dodge & Cox revealed that the firm now holds 26427.0 shares in the company valued at close to $1755809.88, or have control over 0.04% stake in the company. Johnson Controls International plc (NYSE: JCI) currently have 688.60M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 97.80% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 30.89% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 61.50% and 0.71% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $46.05B and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 1.24. PE ratio of stock for trailing 12 months is 30.19, while it has posted earnings per share of $2.20 in the same period. Its PEG reads 1.95 and has Quick Ratio of 0.80 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for JCI, volatility over the week remained 1.82% while standing at 2.24% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that Johnson Controls International plc (JCI) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $0.98 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $0.62 and it is $3.45 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $0.97 which is $0.99 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 $0.77 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to rise by 4.40% while it is estimated to increase by 14.39% in next year. EPS is likely to shrink at an annualized rate of 15.45% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of 25.20% made by the stock over the past 5-years.

Analysts at 23 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the Johnson Controls International plc (JCI)’s stock out of those 23 Wall Street analysts, 15 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 5 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 BofA Securities on May 02, 2022 offering a Buy rating for the stock and assigned a target price of $85 to it. Coverage by Deutsche Bank stated Johnson Controls International plc (JCI) stock as a Buy in their note to investors on March 24, 2022, suggesting a price target of $79 for the stock. On December 17, 2021, Mizuho Initiated their recommendations, while on November 08, 2021, Wells Fargo Reiterated their ratings for the stock with a price target of $83. Stock get a Sector perform rating from RBC Capital Mkts on November 08, 2021.