Some Investing Thoughts On American Public Education Inc. (NASDAQ: APEI)

After grabbing 1.84 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 1.84 million shares of the Consumer Defensive Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 9.75% having worth around $22.64 million. Moreover, Systematic Financial Management L increased its share by 16877.0 to have a control over 1.11 million shares. And Renaissance Technologies LLC raised its holdings to 98100.0 shares by acquiring 1.09 million shares or 5.75% of the stake.

American Public Education Inc. (APEI) concluded trading on 01/19/23 at a closing price of $12.04, with 0.26 million shares of worth about $3.11 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained negative as price took a plunge of -27.51% during that period and on Thursday the price saw a loss of about -0.41%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 18.89M shares, out of which, 18.42M 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: 4 analysts are covering the APEI stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $18.67. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $25.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $15.00. The stock’s current price level is 35.51% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in gain of 19.73% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $25.00 would mean a gain of 51.84% 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 57 times over the past 12 months. They bought 335,098 shares in 28 of the transactions. In 29 selling transactions, insiders dumped 30,991 shares.

T Rowe Price Small Cap Value Fund, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, and iShares Russell 2000 ETF are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in American Public Education Inc. T Rowe Price Small Cap Value Fund is currently holding 1.29 million shares of worth totaling $15.84 million. The company recently came selling 5300.0 shares which brought its stake up to 6.82% of the company’s outstanding shares. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index bought 62575.0 shares, after which its hold over company’s outstanding shares expand to 3.07%, leaving 0.58 million shares with the mutual fund that have a worth of about $7.12 million. iShares Russell 2000 ETF, after selling 0.41 million shares, have now control over 2.17% of the stake in the company. It holds 4270.0 shares of worth $5.04 million.

American Public Education Inc. (NASDAQ: APEI) started trading at $12.02, below -$0.07 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 12.20, or with a loss of -0.41%. Stock saw a price change of -8.30% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of -9.54%. Year-to-date (YTD), APEI shares are showing a performance of -2.03% which decreased to -43.87% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $7.82 but also hit the highest price of $24.02 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for American Public Education Inc. shares is 122.58K. The stock is currently trading -6.80% below its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is down -8.16% for SMA50 and it goes to -13.27% lower than SMA200.

T. Rowe Price Investment Manageme acquired 1.84 million shares of American Public Education Inc. having value of about $22.64 million. American Public Education Inc. (NASDAQ: APEI) currently have 18.89M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 93.30% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 32.88% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 60.90% and 10.44% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $235.62M and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 0.71. It has posted earnings per share of -$5.25 in the same period. It has Quick Ratio of 2.40 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for APEI, volatility over the week remained 4.58% while standing at 4.34% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that American Public Education Inc. (APEI) stock would likely to be making an EPS of -$0.25 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $0.07 and it is $0.49 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target -$0.29 which is -$0.19 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 -$0.01 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to drop by -22.30% while it is estimated to increase by 107.70% in next year. EPS is likely to grow at an annualized rate of 15.00% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of -8.20% made by the stock over the past 5-years.

Analysts at 4 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the American Public Education Inc. (APEI)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Strong Buy” and assign it a score of 1.50. Out of those 4 Wall Street analysts, 4 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 0 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 Truist on April 06, 2021 offering a Buy rating for the stock and assigned a target price of $43 to it. On December 18, 2020, B. Riley Securities Initiated their recommendations, while on November 02, 2020, Sidoti Upgrade their ratings for the stock with a price target of $39. Stock get a Neutral rating from Sidoti on May 29, 2020.