Dimensional Fund Advisors LP recently announced the acquisition of new stake in First Busey Corporation (NASDAQ:BUSE). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Financial company by 4.13% to 2.97 million shares with purchase of 0.12 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 5.37% valued currently at $73.34 million. In addition, LSV Asset Management raised its holdings by 87369.0 to 1.33 million shares. And Geode Capital Management LLC has lifted its position by 2.61% or 24353.0 shares – to 0.96 million shares.
With over 0.17 million First Busey Corporation (BUSE) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $24.10 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $4.01 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -0.58% and its price on 01/23/23 gained nearly 0.29%. Currently, there are 55.35M common shares owned by the public and among those 51.08M 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: 6 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for BUSE have a consensus price objective of $28.83. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $30.00 and a low of $27.00. The average price target is 16.41% above its recent price level and an upside to the estimated low will see the stock gain 10.74% over that period. But an upside of 19.67% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $29.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 118 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 105 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 113,219 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 13 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 43,245 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in First Busey Corporation are Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, iShares Russell 2000 ETF, and Janus Henderson Small Cap Value F. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index owns 1.64 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $40.48 million. The company bought an additional 0.16 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 2.97% of the shares outstanding. iShares Russell 2000 ETF sold 12444.0 shares to see its total holdings shrink to 1.2 million shares valued at over $29.56 million and representing 2.17% of the shares outstanding. Janus Henderson Small Cap Value F bought 0.12 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 0.81 million shares at a value of $20.11 million. Janus Henderson Small Cap Value F now owns shares totaling to 1.47% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of First Busey Corporation (NASDAQ: BUSE) opened at $24.06, up $0.03 from a prior closing price of $24.03. However, the script later moved the day high at 24.33, up 0.29%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -3.48% and 3.43% over the past three months. BUSE shares are trading -2.51% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -12.49% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $21.66 and touched a high of $28.98 over the same period. BUSE has an average intraday trading volume of 138.31K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by -2.10%, -4.68%, and 0.34% respectively.
Institutional ownership of First Busey Corporation (NASDAQ: BUSE) shares accounts for 51.60% of the company’s 55.35M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 22.93%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 27.60% and 13.87% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $1.32B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.90. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 10.93, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $2.20. The company has a PEG of 1.82 and the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.30. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.94% over the week and 1.96% over the month.
Analysts forecast that First Busey Corporation (BUSE) will achieve an EPS of $0.67 for the current quarter, $0.67 for the next quarter and $2.66 for 2023. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.62 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.72. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.53 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 20.40%, and 11.80% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 6.00% over the next five years, compared to 9.50% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 6 brokerage firm advisors rate First Busey Corporation (BUSE) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.80. Specifically, 4 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 1 of the 6 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the BUSE, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Raymond James stated their Outperform rating for the stock in a research note on January 31, 2022, with the firm’s price target at $31. DA Davidson was of a view on February 03, 2020 that the stock is Neutral, while B. Riley FBR gave the stock Buy rating on January 09, 2020, issuing a price target of $27- $29. B. Riley FBR on their part issued Neutral rating on August 21, 2019.
