Northwest Natural Holding Company (NWN): Street Finally Waking Up

The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Northwest Natural Holding Company (NYSE:NWN). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Utilities company by 2.42% to 4.1 million shares with purchase of 96666.0 shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 11.68% valued currently at $195.09 million. In addition, SSgA Funds Management, Inc. raised its holdings by 2866.0 to 1.75 million shares. And Invesco Capital Management LLC has lifted its position by 13.38% or 96636.0 shares – to 0.82 million shares.

With over 0.1 million Northwest Natural Holding Company (NWN) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $49.36 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $4.97 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -6.62% and its price on 01/24/23 gained nearly 0.49%. Currently, there are 34.94M common shares owned by the public and among those 34.80M shares have been available to trade.

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 NWN have a consensus price objective of $55.17. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $64.00 and a low of $45.00. The average price target is 9.31% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -9.69% over that period. But an upside of 22.88% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $54.50.

Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 75 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 49 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 62,983 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 26 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 15,691 shares.

The top 3 mutual fund holders in Northwest Natural Holding Company are iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, and Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF owns 2.59 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $123.36 million. The company sold 11696.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 7.39% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index bought 23427.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 1.07 million shares valued at over $50.71 million and representing 3.04% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund bought 20155.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 0.9 million shares at a value of $43.04 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.58% of the shares outstanding.

Shares of Northwest Natural Holding Company (NYSE: NWN) opened at $48.95, down -$0.17 from a prior closing price of $49.12. However, the script later moved the day high at 49.53, up 0.49%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -0.44% and 7.75% over the past three months. NWN shares are trading 3.72% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 3.83% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $42.37 and touched a high of $57.63 over the same period. NWN has an average intraday trading volume of 187.25K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 1.70%, 2.48%, and -0.56% respectively.

Institutional ownership of Northwest Natural Holding Company (NYSE: NWN) shares accounts for 77.50% of the company’s 34.94M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 23.58%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 53.85% and 1.41% respectively.

It has a market capitalization of $1.72B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.56. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 18.96, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $2.60. The company has a PEG of 4.41 and a Quick Ratio of 0.70 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 1.32. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.98% over the week and 2.00% over the month.

Analysts forecast that Northwest Natural Holding Company (NWN) will achieve an EPS of -$0.72 for the current quarter, $1.45 for the next quarter and $2.69 for 2023. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$0.76 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of -$0.64. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was -$0.67 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 11.40%, and 6.71% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 4.30% over the next five years, compared to 2.60% 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 Northwest Natural Holding Company (NWN) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.30. Specifically, 3 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 3 of the 6 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”

Looking at the support for the NWN, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. BofA Securities stated their Neutral rating for the stock in a research note on May 24, 2022, with the firm’s price target at $53-$51. BofA Securities coverage for the Northwest Natural Holding Company (NWN) stock in a research note released on May 24, 2022 offered a Neutral rating with a price target of $53. Guggenheim was of a view on January 20, 2022 that the stock is Neutral, while Stifel gave the stock Buy rating on December 17, 2020, issuing a price target of $61. Wells Fargo on their part issued Equal Weight rating on September 24, 2020.