These Numbers Could Change Investor Views For The Howard Hughes Corporation (NYSE: HHC)

Pershing Square Capital Managemen recently announced the acquisition of new stake in The Howard Hughes Corporation (NYSE:HHC). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Real Estate company by 16.70% to 15.9 million shares with purchase of 2.27 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 31.85% valued currently at $1.21 billion. In addition, Principal Global Investors LLC raised its holdings by 2578.0 to 2.27 million shares. And Dimensional Fund Advisors LP has lifted its position by 8.40% or 0.14 million shares – to 1.75 million shares.

With over 0.3 million The Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $82.62 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $24.88 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 23.61% and its price on 01/17/23 gained nearly 0.67%. Currently, there are 49.45M common shares owned by the public and among those 49.43M shares have been available to trade.

An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 5 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for HHC have a consensus price objective of $100.00. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $150.00 and a low of $80.00. The average price target is 17.38% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -3.28% over that period. But an upside of 44.92% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $90.00.

Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 46 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 32 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 2,291,329 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 14 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 14,704 shares.

The top 3 mutual fund holders in The Howard Hughes Corporation are Pershing Square Holdings Ltd., Vanguard Real Estate Index Fund, and Principal Investors – Mid Cap Fun. Pershing Square Holdings Ltd. owns 11.76 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $898.67 million. The company bought an additional 3.13 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 23.57% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Real Estate Index Fund sold 55625.0 shares to see its total holdings shrink to 1.69 million shares valued at over $129.14 million and representing 3.39% of the shares outstanding. Principal Investors – Mid Cap Fun sold 11955.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 1.68 million shares at a value of $128.45 million. Principal Investors – Mid Cap Fun now owns shares totaling to 3.37% of the shares outstanding.

Shares of The Howard Hughes Corporation (NYSE: HHC) opened at $81.87, down -$0.2 from a prior closing price of $82.07. However, the script later moved the day high at 83.86, up 0.67%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 5.92% and 44.52% over the past three months. HHC shares are trading 8.11% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -19.36% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $50.90 and touched a high of $105.51 over the same period. HHC has an average intraday trading volume of 317.48K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 6.80%, 13.40%, and 11.97% respectively.

Institutional ownership of The Howard Hughes Corporation (NYSE: HHC) shares accounts for 96.20% of the company’s 49.45M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 41.34%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 59.08% and 40.36% respectively.

It has a market capitalization of $4.14B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.42. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 17.00, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $4.86. The company has a PEG of 0.85 and the debt-to-equity ratio at 1.33. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.21% over the week and 2.64% over the month.

Analysts forecast that The Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC) will achieve an EPS of $2.37 for the current quarter, $0.68 for the next quarter and $0.4 for 2023. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $1.61 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $3.05. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.07 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 306.20%, and -92.75% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 20.00% over the next five years, compared to -26.30% over the past 5-year period.

If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 5 brokerage firm advisors rate The Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.80. Specifically, 4 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 0 of the 5 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”

Looking at the support for the HHC, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. BMO Capital Markets stated their Outperform rating for the stock in a research note on July 26, 2022, with the firm’s price target at $90. JP Morgan coverage for the The Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC) stock in a research note released on January 31, 2022 offered a Overweight rating with a price target of $125. BWS Financial was of a view on February 16, 2021 that the stock is Buy, while Piper Sandler gave the stock Overweight rating on August 11, 2020, issuing a price target of $50- $70. Piper Sandler on their part issued Neutral rating on March 26, 2020.