Is There More Upside Ahead For The Hanover Insurance Group Inc. (NYSE: THG)

The Vanguard Group, Inc. has recently announced that it has increased stake in The Hanover Insurance Group Inc. (NYSE:THG) by 0.31%. After grabbing 3.64 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 11365.0 shares of the Financial Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 10.25% having worth around $492.42 million. Moreover, Franklin Mutual Advisers LLC increased its share by 50965.0 to have a control over 1.19 million shares. And SSgA Funds Management, Inc. raised its holdings to 6529.0 shares by acquiring 1.11 million shares or 3.11% of the stake.

The Hanover Insurance Group Inc. (THG) concluded trading on 01/19/23 at a closing price of $128.41, with 0.43 million shares of worth about $55.0 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained negative as price took a plunge of -7.22% during that period and on Thursday the price saw a loss of about -2.26%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 35.60M shares, out of which, 35.27M 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 THG stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $152.33. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $170.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $141.00. The stock’s current price level is 18.42% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in gain of 8.93% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $170.00 would mean a gain of 24.46% 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 101 times over the past 12 months. They bought 255,369 shares in 74 of the transactions. In 27 selling transactions, insiders dumped 183,104 shares.

iShares Core S&P Mid Cap ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, and Franklin Small Cap Value Fund are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in The Hanover Insurance Group Inc. iShares Core S&P Mid Cap ETF is currently holding 1.1 million shares of worth totaling $148.26 million. The company recently came selling 209.0 shares which brought its stake up to 3.09% of the company’s outstanding shares. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index bought 1263.0 shares, after which its hold over company’s outstanding shares expand to 2.72%, leaving 0.97 million shares with the mutual fund that have a worth of about $130.52 million. Franklin Small Cap Value Fund, after buying 0.84 million shares, have now control over 2.37% of the stake in the company. It holds 0.0 shares of worth $113.63 million.

The Hanover Insurance Group Inc. (NYSE: THG) started trading at $130.17, below -$1.21 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 130.17, or with a loss of -2.26%. Stock saw a price change of -4.62% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of -4.09%. Year-to-date (YTD), THG shares are showing a performance of -4.97% which decreased to -5.75% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $123.36 but also hit the highest price of $155.55 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for The Hanover Insurance Group Inc. shares is 160.13K. The stock is currently trading -5.32% below its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is down -7.81% for SMA50 and it goes to -8.35% lower than SMA200.

The Vanguard Group, Inc. acquired 3.64 million shares of The Hanover Insurance Group Inc. having value of about $492.42 million. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by The Vanguard Group, Inc. revealed that the firm now holds 11365.0 shares in the company valued at close to $1459379.65, or have control over 0.31% stake in the company. The Hanover Insurance Group Inc. (NYSE: THG) currently have 35.60M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 88.80% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 4.23% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 59.96% and 28.46% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $4.55B and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 0.73. PE ratio of stock for trailing 12 months is 15.83, while it has posted earnings per share of $8.11 in the same period. Its PEG reads 0.98 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for THG, volatility over the week remained 2.65% while standing at 1.89% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that The Hanover Insurance Group Inc. (THG) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $0.97 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $2.67 and it is $11.45 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $0.96 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 $0.85 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to rise by 21.40% while it is estimated to increase by 20.04% in next year. EPS is likely to shrink at an annualized rate of 16.15% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of 49.40% made by the stock over the past 5-years.

Analysts at 7 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the The Hanover Insurance Group Inc. (THG)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Moderate Buy” and assign it a score of 2.20. Out of those 7 Wall Street analysts, 3 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 4 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 Janney on November 11, 2022 offering a Buy rating for the stock and assigned a target price of $164 to it. Coverage by Piper Sandler stated The Hanover Insurance Group Inc. (THG) stock as a Neutral in their note to investors on November 07, 2022, suggesting a price target of $144 for the stock. On June 29, 2022, Morgan Stanley Initiated their recommendations, while on August 17, 2021, Wolfe Research Initiated their ratings for the stock with a price target of $144. Stock get a Buy rating from BofA Securities on May 21, 2021.