The Vanguard Group, Inc. has recently announced that it has increased stake in ESCO Technologies Inc. (NYSE:ESE) by 1.71%. After grabbing 2.81 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 47168.0 shares of the Technology Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 10.87% having worth around $246.22 million. Moreover, T. Rowe Price Investment Manageme increased its share by 2.73 million to have a control over 2.73 million shares. And Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings to 2111.0 shares by acquiring 1.39 million shares or 5.35% of the stake.
ESCO Technologies Inc. (ESE) concluded trading on 01/26/23 at a closing price of $94.34, with 52071.0 shares of worth about $4.91 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained positive as price took a surge of 27.02% during that period and on Thursday the price saw a gain of about 1.46%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 25.86M shares, out of which, 25.49M shares are available for trading.
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A deeper look into what the analysts at Wall Street are thinking about the price target of this stock provides us with the following: 3 analysts are covering the ESE stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $106.67. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $110.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $105.00. The stock’s current price level is 11.56% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in gain of 10.15% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $110.00 would mean a gain of 14.24% for the stock.
According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), insiders took part in trade of the company’s stock for 10 times over the past 12 months. They bought 50,156 shares in 7 of the transactions. In 3 selling transactions, insiders dumped 24,725 shares.
iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, American Funds Small Cap World Fu, and Vanguard Total Stock Market Index are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in ESCO Technologies Inc. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF is currently holding 1.91 million shares of worth totaling $167.14 million. The company recently came selling 4642.0 shares which brought its stake up to 7.38% of the company’s outstanding shares. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, after selling 0.79 million shares, have now control over 3.05% of the stake in the company. It holds 2835.0 shares of worth $69.02 million.
ESCO Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ESE) started trading at $93.71, above $0.73 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 94.35, or with a gain of 1.46%. Stock saw a price change of 2.81% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of 7.23%. Year-to-date (YTD), ESE shares are showing a performance of 7.77% which increased to 12.52% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $60.03 but also hit the highest price of $96.69 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for ESCO Technologies Inc. shares is 85.87K. The stock is currently trading 4.21% above its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is up 3.90% for SMA50 and it goes to 21.26% higher than SMA200.
The Vanguard Group, Inc. acquired 2.81 million shares of ESCO Technologies Inc. having value of about $246.22 million. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by The Vanguard Group, Inc. revealed that the firm now holds 47168.0 shares in the company valued at close to $4449829.12, or have control over 1.71% stake in the company. ESCO Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ESE) currently have 25.86M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 97.80% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 3.99% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 66.03% and 29.35% of the stake respectively.
The stock has a current market capitalization of $2.40B and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 1.10. PE ratio of stock for trailing 12 months is 29.86, while it has posted earnings per share of $3.16 in the same period. Its PEG reads 1.99 and has Quick Ratio of 1.30 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for ESE, volatility over the week remained 2.21% while standing at 2.19% over the month.
Analysts are in expectations that ESCO Technologies Inc. (ESE) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $1.16 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $0.6 and it is $3.66 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $1.15 which is $1.18 at the higher side of the target for the same. When we compare those targets with actual EPS, we find that company posted an EPS of $0.85 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to rise by 30.40% while it is estimated to increase by 16.85% in next year. EPS is likely to grow at an annualized rate of 15.00% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of 8.90% made by the stock over the past 5-years.
Analysts at 3 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the ESCO Technologies Inc. (ESE)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Strong Buy” and assign it a score of 1.30. Out of those 3 Wall Street analysts, 3 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 0 were in favor recommending the stock as a “Hold” and 0 analyst recommended the stock as “Sell”.
Digging deeper we find that several firms have released their research notes about the support levels of the stock. Most recent of them is a note released by Sidoti on September 28, 2021 offering a Buy rating for the stock and assigned a target price of $99 to it. Coverage by Stephens stated ESCO Technologies Inc. (ESE) stock as an Overweight in their note to investors on October 16, 2020, suggesting a price target of $105 for the stock. On July 09, 2019, Stephens Initiated their recommendations, while on December 06, 2017, Stephens Resumed their ratings for the stock with a price target of $65. Stock get a Buy rating from Needham on November 21, 2017.
