Principal Financial Group Inc. (PFG) Outlook Starting To Look Brighter?

Nissay Asset Management Corp. has recently announced that it has increased stake in Principal Financial Group Inc. (NASDAQ:PFG) by 0.00%. After grabbing 18.16 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 142.0 shares of the Financial Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 7.29% having worth around $1.6 billion. Moreover, Managed Account Advisors LLC increased its share by 0.47 million to have a control over 15.67 million shares. And SSgA Funds Management, Inc. raised its holdings to 17083.0 shares by acquiring 12.02 million shares or 4.82% of the stake.

Principal Financial Group Inc. (PFG) concluded trading on 12/08/22 at a closing price of $89.11, with 1.84 million shares of worth about $163.99 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained positive as price took a surge of 26.77% during that period and on Thursday the price saw a loss of about -1.25%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 248.00M shares, out of which, 241.66M 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: 16 analysts are covering the PFG stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $78.21. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $90.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $61.00. The stock’s current price level is -13.57% below of average price target set by the analysts, while a dip to estimated low would result in loss of -46.08% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $90.00 would mean a gain of 0.99% 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 159 times over the past 12 months. They bought 1,005,348 shares in 133 of the transactions. In 26 selling transactions, insiders dumped 932,759 shares.

Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund, and Vanguard 500 Index Fund are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in Principal Financial Group Inc. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index is currently holding 7.46 million shares of worth totaling $657.2 million. The company recently came buying 31140.0 shares which brought its stake up to 2.99% of the company’s outstanding shares. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund bought 74327.0 shares, after which its hold over company’s outstanding shares expand to 2.34%, leaving 5.82 million shares with the mutual fund that have a worth of about $513.08 million. Vanguard 500 Index Fund, after buying 5.3 million shares, have now control over 2.13% of the stake in the company. It holds 50927.0 shares of worth $467.37 million.

Principal Financial Group Inc. (NASDAQ: PFG) started trading at $89.54, below -$0.7 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 90.85, or with a loss of -1.25%. Stock saw a price change of -1.99% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of -1.70%. Year-to-date (YTD), PFG shares are showing a performance of 23.20% which increased to 24.42% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $61.05 but also hit the highest price of $96.17 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for Principal Financial Group Inc. shares is 1.85 million. The stock is currently trading -2.50% below its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is up 5.09% for SMA50 and it goes to 19.96% higher than SMA200.

Nissay Asset Management Corp. acquired 18.16 million shares of Principal Financial Group Inc. having value of about $1.6 billion. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by Nissay Asset Management Corp. revealed that the firm now holds 142.0 shares in the company valued at close to $12653.62, or have control over 0.00% stake in the company. Principal Financial Group Inc. (NASDAQ: PFG) currently have 248.00M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 76.90% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 33.52% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 41.67% and 1.24% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $21.51B and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 1.27. PE ratio of stock for trailing 12 months is 4.32, while it has posted earnings per share of $20.62 in the same period. Its PEG reads 0.78 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for PFG, volatility over the week remained 2.77% while standing at 2.25% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that Principal Financial Group Inc. (PFG) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $1.63 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $1.65 and it is $7.14 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $1.48 which is $1.99 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 $1.85 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to rise by 24.20% while it is estimated to increase by 8.52% in next year. EPS is likely to shrink at an annualized rate of 5.57% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of 6.90% made by the stock over the past 5-years.

Analysts at 16 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the Principal Financial Group Inc. (PFG)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Hold” and assign it a score of 3.50. Out of those 16 Wall Street analysts, 1 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 6 were in favor recommending the stock as a “Hold” and 9 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 Credit Suisse on December 08, 2022 offering an Underperform rating for the stock and assigned a target price of $86 to it. Coverage by Morgan Stanley stated Principal Financial Group Inc. (PFG) stock as an Underweight in their note to investors on November 17, 2022, suggesting a price target of $79 for the stock. On November 17, 2022, Evercore ISI Downgrade their recommendations, while on November 01, 2022, Barclays Downgrade their ratings for the stock with a price target of $89. Stock get an Underperform rating from Keefe Bruyette on October 31, 2022.