BlackRock Fund Advisors recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Liquidity Services Inc. (NASDAQ:LQDT). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Consumer Cyclical company by 3.48% to 3.86 million shares with purchase of 0.13 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 10.79% valued currently at $54.32 million. In addition, Granahan Investment Management, L raised its holdings by 0.42 million to 2.55 million shares. And The Vanguard Group, Inc. has lifted its position by 1.36% or 25601.0 shares – to 1.9 million shares.
With over 0.17 million Liquidity Services Inc. (LQDT) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $15.41 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $2.64 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -19.86% and its price on 01/23/23 gained nearly 3.28%. Currently, there are 31.73M common shares owned by the public and among those 27.01M 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: 2 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for LQDT have a consensus price objective of $24.00. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $28.00 and a low of $20.00. The average price target is 35.79% above its recent price level and an upside to the estimated low will see the stock gain 22.95% over that period. But an upside of 44.96% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $24.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 88 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 53 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 338,894 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 35 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 344,366 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Liquidity Services Inc. are iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, and Granahan Funds Plc – US Focused G. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF owns 2.0 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $28.13 million. The company sold 23397.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 5.59% of the shares outstanding. Granahan Funds Plc – US Focused G bought 66078.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 0.76 million shares at a value of $10.68 million. Granahan Funds Plc – US Focused G now owns shares totaling to 2.12% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Liquidity Services Inc. (NASDAQ: LQDT) opened at $14.89, down -$0.03 from a prior closing price of $14.92. However, the script later moved the day high at 15.80, up 3.28%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 3.98% and -9.41% over the past three months. LQDT shares are trading 9.60% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -11.99% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $11.39 and touched a high of $22.59 over the same period. LQDT has an average intraday trading volume of 183.30K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 7.53%, 2.22%, and -3.79% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Liquidity Services Inc. (NASDAQ: LQDT) shares accounts for 67.70% of the company’s 31.73M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 32.01%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 33.45% and 25.93% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $539.81M and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.40. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 12.79, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $1.21. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 3.83% over the week and 3.74% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Liquidity Services Inc. (LQDT) will achieve an EPS of $0.23 for the current quarter, $0.17 for the next quarter and $0.95 for 2023. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.23 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.23. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.17 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -17.80%, and 15.56% over the next financial year.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 2 brokerage firm advisors rate Liquidity Services Inc. (LQDT) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.50. Specifically, 2 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 0 of the 2 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the LQDT, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Craig Hallum stated their Buy rating for the stock in a research note on June 27, 2022, with the firm’s price target at $28. The Benchmark Company coverage for the Liquidity Services Inc. (LQDT) stock in a research note released on May 06, 2016 offered a Hold rating with a price target of $6.50. RBC Capital Mkts was of a view on February 05, 2016 that the stock is Sector Perform, while RBC Capital Mkts gave the stock Sector Perform rating on November 20, 2015, issuing a price target of $11- $8. RBC Capital Mkts on their part issued Sector Perform rating on May 09, 2014.
