There Is Clear Momentum For Proto Labs Inc. (NYSE: PRLB)

The Vanguard Group, Inc. has recently announced that it has increased stake in Proto Labs Inc. (NYSE:PRLB) by 4.34%. After grabbing 2.91 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 0.12 million shares of the Industrials Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 10.75% having worth around $74.4 million. Moreover, Disciplined Growth Investors, Inc increased its share by 60667.0 to have a control over 1.94 million shares. And SSgA Funds Management, Inc. raised its holdings to 1643.0 shares by acquiring 1.12 million shares or 4.14% of the stake.

Proto Labs Inc. (PRLB) concluded trading on 01/18/23 at a closing price of $27.64, with 0.24 million shares of worth about $6.6 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained negative as price took a plunge of -42.40% during that period and on Wednesday the price saw a gain of about 0.40%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 27.50M shares, out of which, 26.92M 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: 7 analysts are covering the PRLB stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $30.33. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $42.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $20.00. The stock’s current price level is 15.4% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in loss of -38.2% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $42.00 would mean a gain of 34.19% 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 23 times over the past 12 months. They bought 78,598 shares in 18 of the transactions. In 5 selling transactions, insiders dumped 4,182 shares.

iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, and Nikko AM Global Umbrella Fund – A are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in Proto Labs Inc. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF is currently holding 2.01 million shares of worth totaling $51.21 million. The company recently came selling 1528.0 shares which brought its stake up to 7.40% of the company’s outstanding shares. Nikko AM Global Umbrella Fund – A, after buying 0.74 million shares, have now control over 2.75% of the stake in the company. It holds 0.12 million shares of worth $19.01 million.

Proto Labs Inc. (NYSE: PRLB) started trading at $27.72, above $0.19 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 28.16, or with a gain of 0.40%. Stock saw a price change of 3.13% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of 9.03%. Year-to-date (YTD), PRLB shares are showing a performance of 8.26% which decreased to -45.07% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $22.04 but also hit the highest price of $61.14 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for Proto Labs Inc. shares is 302.05K. The stock is currently trading 6.81% above its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is up 8.61% for SMA50 and it goes to -29.50% lower than SMA200.

The Vanguard Group, Inc. acquired 2.91 million shares of Proto Labs Inc. having value of about $74.4 million. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by The Vanguard Group, Inc. revealed that the firm now holds 0.12 million shares in the company valued at close to $3349415.2, or have control over 4.34% stake in the company. Proto Labs Inc. (NYSE: PRLB) currently have 27.50M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 89.20% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 33.34% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 52.54% and 28.27% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $754.85M and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 1.11. PE ratio of stock for trailing 12 months is 32.37, while it has posted earnings per share of $0.85 in the same period. Its PEG reads 1.29 and has Quick Ratio of 2.90 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 0.00. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for PRLB, volatility over the week remained 2.79% while standing at 4.20% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that Proto Labs Inc. (PRLB) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $0.4 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $0.43 and it is $1.86 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $0.38 which is $0.41 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 $0.35 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to drop by -36.20% while it is estimated to decrease by -22.69% in next year. EPS is likely to grow at an annualized rate of 25.00% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of -5.60% made by the stock over the past 5-years.

Analysts at 7 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the Proto Labs Inc. (PRLB)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Hold” and assign it a score of 3.00. Out of those 7 Wall Street analysts, 2 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 4 were in favor recommending the stock as a “Hold” and 1 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 Lake Street on November 29, 2022 offering a Buy rating for the stock and assigned a target price of $29 to it. Stock get a Buy rating from The Benchmark Company on January 22, 2021.