The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Astec Industries Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Industrials company by 1.85% to 2.46 million shares with purchase of 44752.0 shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 10.83% valued currently at $100.02 million. In addition, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings by 28359.0 to 1.41 million shares. And GAMCO Asset Management, Inc. has lifted its position by 5.88% or 57071.0 shares – to 1.03 million shares.
With over 0.23 million Astec Industries Inc. (ASTE) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $39.29 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $9.15 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -11.95% and its price on 01/23/23 gained nearly 1.89%. Currently, there are 22.84M common shares owned by the public and among those 22.38M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 4 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for ASTE have a consensus price objective of $45.33. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $51.00 and a low of $36.00. The average price target is 13.32% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -9.14% over that period. But an upside of 22.96% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $49.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 129 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 112 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 104,301 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 17 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 17,827 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Astec Industries Inc. are iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, Victory Sycamore Small Company Op, and Vanguard Total Stock Market Index. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF owns 1.68 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $68.32 million. The company sold 1272.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 7.40% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index now owns shares totaling to 2.94% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Astec Industries Inc. (NASDAQ: ASTE) opened at $38.67, up $0.11 from a prior closing price of $38.56. However, the script later moved the day high at 39.53, up 1.89%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 1.21% and 13.10% over the past three months. ASTE shares are trading -3.37% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -39.68% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $31.04 and touched a high of $66.88 over the same period. ASTE has an average intraday trading volume of 121.82K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by -0.80%, -5.49%, and -4.19% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Astec Industries Inc. (NASDAQ: ASTE) shares accounts for 97.90% of the company’s 22.84M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 27.83%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 67.14% and 24.35% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $870.67M and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.52. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$0.36. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.47% over the week and 3.42% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Astec Industries Inc. (ASTE) will achieve an EPS of $0.3 for the current quarter, $0.46 for the next quarter and $2.25 for 2023. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.22 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.38. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.5 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -52.60%, and 71.67% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 10.00% over the next five years, compared to -20.10% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 4 brokerage firm advisors rate Astec Industries Inc. (ASTE) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.00. Specifically, 2 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 2 of the 4 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the ASTE, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Robert W. Baird stated their Neutral rating for the stock in a research note on April 08, 2022, with the firm’s price target at $40. Sidoti coverage for the Astec Industries Inc. (ASTE) stock in a research note released on November 08, 2021 offered a Buy rating with a price target of $82. Stifel was of a view on May 06, 2021 that the stock is Buy, while Sidoti gave the stock Neutral rating on April 23, 2020, issuing a price target of $41. Robert W. Baird on their part issued Outperform rating on April 01, 2020.
