Darlington Partners Capital Manag recently announced the acquisition of new stake in MeridianLink Inc. (NYSE:MLNK). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Technology company by 39.07% to 4.0 million shares with purchase of 1.12 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 4.95% valued currently at $54.96 million. In addition, Keenan Capital LLC raised its holdings by 0.19 million to 2.6 million shares. And The Vanguard Group, Inc. has lifted its position by 16.99% or 0.25 million shares – to 1.74 million shares.
With over 0.18 million MeridianLink Inc. (MLNK) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $16.02 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $2.89 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -7.61% and its price on 01/23/23 lost nearly -2.91%. Currently, there are 80.66M common shares owned by the public and among those 64.87M 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: 9 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for MLNK have a consensus price objective of $18.86. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $28.00 and a low of $14.00. The average price target is 15.06% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -14.43% over that period. But an upside of 42.79% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $16.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 33 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 17 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 946,009 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 16 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 225,628 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in MeridianLink Inc. are iShares Russell 2000 ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, and Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund. iShares Russell 2000 ETF owns 0.51 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $7.06 million. The company sold 5368.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 0.64% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund sold 2904.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 0.42 million shares at a value of $5.73 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 0.52% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of MeridianLink Inc. (NYSE: MLNK) opened at $16.57, up $0.07 from a prior closing price of $16.50. However, the script later moved the day high at 16.69, down -2.91%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 4.36% and -4.81% over the past three months. MLNK shares are trading 16.68% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -6.59% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $12.49 and touched a high of $21.12 over the same period. MLNK has an average intraday trading volume of 132.79K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 10.47%, 10.85%, and -3.31% respectively.
Institutional ownership of MeridianLink Inc. (NYSE: MLNK) shares accounts for 74.30% of the company’s 80.66M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 19.70%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 5.66% and 12.82% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $1.26B. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 364.09, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $0.04. The company has a PEG of 36.41 and a Quick Ratio of 3.30 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.74. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 3.02% over the week and 3.61% over the month.
The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -54.90%, and -3.02% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 10.00% over the next five years, compared to -26.97% over the past 5-year period.
Specifically, 3 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 4 of the 9 advise that investors “hold,” and 1 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the MLNK, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Barclays stated their Underweight rating for the stock in a research note on January 11, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $17-$14. Stifel was of a view on January 18, 2022 that the stock is Hold, while Tigress Financial gave the stock Buy rating on September 03, 2021, issuing a price target of $34. Wolfe Research on their part issued Outperform rating on August 23, 2021.
