BlackRock Fund Advisors recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Axos Financial Inc. (NYSE:AX). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Financial company by 0.67% to 7.86 million shares with purchase of 52297.0 shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 13.10% valued currently at $300.31 million. In addition, The Vanguard Group, Inc. raised its holdings by 0.16 million to 6.01 million shares. And Dimensional Fund Advisors LP has lifted its position by 1.68% or 35534.0 shares – to 2.15 million shares.
With over 0.27 million Axos Financial Inc. (AX) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $41.40 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $11.03 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 14.02% and its price on 01/13/23 gained nearly 1.79%. Currently, there are 59.85M common shares owned by the public and among those 53.52M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 6 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for AX have a consensus price objective of $48.50. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $54.00 and a low of $42.00. The average price target is 14.64% above its recent price level and an upside to the estimated low will see the stock gain 1.43% over that period. But an upside of 23.33% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $49.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 134 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 66 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 429,973 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 68 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 233,826 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Axos Financial Inc. are iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, and Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF owns 3.95 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $151.11 million. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index bought 3489.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 1.64 million shares valued at over $62.53 million and representing 2.73% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund bought 114.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 1.39 million shares at a value of $52.97 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.31% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Axos Financial Inc. (NYSE: AX) opened at $40.26, down -$0.41 from a prior closing price of $40.67. However, the script later moved the day high at 41.62, up 1.79%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 6.24% and 10.49% over the past three months. AX shares are trading 8.32% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -31.23% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $33.91 and touched a high of $61.79 over the same period. AX has an average intraday trading volume of 308.65K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 9.08%, 6.57%, and 5.79% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Axos Financial Inc. (NYSE: AX) shares accounts for 80.40% of the company’s 59.85M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 49.51%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 7.86% and 28.96% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $2.44B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.39. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 10.45, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $3.96. The company has a PEG of 1.04 and the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.25. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 3.07% over the week and 3.09% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Axos Financial Inc. (AX) will achieve an EPS of $1.18 for the current quarter, $1.15 for the next quarter and $4.98 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $1.09 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $1.28. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $1 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 11.50%, and 9.33% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 10.00% over the next five years, compared to 13.90% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 6 brokerage firm advisors rate Axos Financial Inc. (AX) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.80. Specifically, 5 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 1 of the 6 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the AX, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Keefe Bruyette stated their Outperform rating for the stock in a research note on July 11, 2022, with the firm’s price target at $52-$56. B. Riley Securities was of a view on January 28, 2022 that the stock is Buy, while B. Riley Securities gave the stock Neutral rating on October 06, 2021, issuing a price target of $54. Sidoti on their part issued Buy rating on June 21, 2021.
