Deluxe Corporation (DLX): Not A Time To Panic Nor Freeze

The Vanguard Group, Inc. has recently announced that it has increased stake in Deluxe Corporation (NYSE:DLX) by 1.79%. After grabbing 4.75 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 83643.0 shares of the Communication Services Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 11.01% having worth around $80.61 million. Moreover, American Century Investment Manag increased its share by 56259.0 to have a control over 2.8 million shares. And SSgA Funds Management, Inc. raised its holdings to 9867.0 shares by acquiring 1.76 million shares or 4.09% of the stake.

Deluxe Corporation (DLX) concluded trading on 01/19/23 at a closing price of $19.29, with 0.2 million shares of worth about $3.76 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained negative as price took a plunge of -15.62% during that period and on Thursday the price saw a loss of about -0.26%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 43.12M shares, out of which, 42.73M 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: 2 analysts are covering the DLX stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $28.50. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $32.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $25.00. The stock’s current price level is 32.32% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in gain of 22.84% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $32.00 would mean a gain of 39.72% 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 128 times over the past 12 months. They bought 176,470 shares in 70 of the transactions. In 58 selling transactions, insiders dumped 65,867 shares.

iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, American Century Small Cap Value, and Vanguard Total Stock Market Index are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in Deluxe Corporation iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF is currently holding 3.19 million shares of worth totaling $54.18 million. The company recently came selling 2408.0 shares which brought its stake up to 7.40% of the company’s outstanding shares. American Century Small Cap Value bought 40000.0 shares, after which its hold over company’s outstanding shares expand to 5.29%, leaving 2.28 million shares with the mutual fund that have a worth of about $38.71 million. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, after buying 1.31 million shares, have now control over 3.03% of the stake in the company. It holds 3339.0 shares of worth $22.2 million.

Deluxe Corporation (NYSE: DLX) started trading at $19.16, below -$0.18 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 19.65, or with a loss of -0.26%. Stock saw a price change of -0.72% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of 17.77%. Year-to-date (YTD), DLX shares are showing a performance of 13.60% which decreased to -40.85% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $15.30 but also hit the highest price of $33.57 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for Deluxe Corporation shares is 222.97K. The stock is currently trading 6.70% above its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is up 4.54% for SMA50 and it goes to -9.30% lower than SMA200.

The Vanguard Group, Inc. acquired 4.75 million shares of Deluxe Corporation having value of about $80.61 million. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by The Vanguard Group, Inc. revealed that the firm now holds 83643.0 shares in the company valued at close to $1613473.47, or have control over 1.79% stake in the company. Deluxe Corporation (NYSE: DLX) currently have 43.12M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 92.00% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 3.30% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 59.13% and 28.29% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $839.50M and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 1.52. PE ratio of stock for trailing 12 months is 13.87, while it has posted earnings per share of $1.39 in the same period. Its PEG reads 1.85 and has Quick Ratio of 0.90 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 2.78. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for DLX, volatility over the week remained 2.65% while standing at 3.36% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that Deluxe Corporation (DLX) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $0.93 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $1.14 and it is $4.23 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $0.87 which is $1 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 $1.1 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to drop by -16.60% while it is estimated to decrease by -2.33% in next year. EPS is likely to grow at an annualized rate of 7.50% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of -20.60% made by the stock over the past 5-years.

Analysts at 2 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the Deluxe Corporation (DLX)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Moderate Buy” and assign it a score of 2.50. Out of those 2 Wall Street analysts, 1 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 1 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 Cowen on September 01, 2021 offering an Outperform rating for the stock and assigned a target price of $55 to it. Stock get a Market perform rating from Northland Capital on July 25, 2014.