Dimensional Fund Advisors LP recently announced the acquisition of new stake in El Pollo Loco Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LOCO). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Consumer Cyclical company by 0.94% to 1.94 million shares with purchase of 18012.0 shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 5.24% valued currently at $19.34 million. In addition, The Vanguard Group, Inc. raised its holdings by 1219.0 to 1.29 million shares. And FIAM LLC has lifted its position by 5.79% or 55310.0 shares – to 1.01 million shares.
With over 0.11 million El Pollo Loco Holdings Inc. (LOCO) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $11.33 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $1.28 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 35.99% and its price on 01/23/23 gained nearly 2.16%. Currently, there are 36.40M common shares owned by the public and among those 19.70M shares have been available to trade.
Will You Miss Out On This Growth Stock Boom?
A new megatrend in the fintech market is well underway. Mobile payments are projected to boom into a massive $12 trillion market by 2028. According to Motley Fool this growth stock could "deliver huge returns." Not only in the immediate future but also over the next decade. Especially since the man behind this company is a serial entrepreneur who has been wildly successful over the years.
And this is just one of our
5 Best Growth Stocks To Own For 2023.
Sponsored
An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 5 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for LOCO have a consensus price objective of $12.17. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $15.50 and a low of $10.00. The average price target is 6.9% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -13.3% over that period. But an upside of 26.9% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $11.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 26 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 15 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 199,350 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 11 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 5,581,598 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in El Pollo Loco Holdings Inc. are iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, and William Blair Small Cap Value Fun. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF owns 1.48 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $14.71 million. The company sold 1120.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.99% of the shares outstanding. William Blair Small Cap Value Fun sold 35913.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 0.59 million shares at a value of $5.83 million. William Blair Small Cap Value Fun now owns shares totaling to 1.58% of the shares outstanding.
However, the script later moved the day high at 11.34, up 2.16%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 3.28% and 16.80% over the past three months. LOCO shares are trading 13.76% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 1.41% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $7.06 and touched a high of $12.10 over the same period. LOCO has an average intraday trading volume of 181.53K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 8.64%, 6.63%, and 23.05% respectively.
Institutional ownership of El Pollo Loco Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: LOCO) shares accounts for 97.70% of the company’s 36.40M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 25.13%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 36.06% and 19.82% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $407.65M and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.33. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 20.20, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $0.56. The company has a PEG of 1.35 and a Quick Ratio of 0.50 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.07. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 3.16% over the week and 2.86% over the month.
Analysts forecast that El Pollo Loco Holdings Inc. (LOCO) will achieve an EPS of $0.12 for the current quarter, $0.14 for the next quarter and $0.75 for 2023. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.1 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.13. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.27 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 16.90%, and 36.00% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 15.00% over the next five years, compared to 11.20% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 5 brokerage firm advisors rate El Pollo Loco Holdings Inc. (LOCO) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.60. Specifically, 1 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 4 of the 5 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Truist coverage for the El Pollo Loco Holdings Inc. (LOCO) stock in a research note released on February 08, 2021 offered a Hold rating with a price target of $20. CL King was of a view on April 20, 2020 that the stock is Buy, while SunTrust gave the stock Buy rating on April 01, 2020, issuing a price target of $11. Stifel on their part issued Hold rating on July 26, 2016.
