The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Financial company by 1.15% to 311.8 million shares with purchase of 3.54 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 8.18% valued currently at $12.87 billion. In addition, T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. raised its holdings by 18.25 million to 105.62 million shares. And Capital Research & Management Co has lifted its position by 7.80% or 5.45 million shares – to 75.41 million shares.
With over 15.92 million Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $47.68 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $759.04 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 8.96% and its price on 02/06/23 gained nearly 0.21%. Currently, there are 3.80B common shares owned by the public and among those 3.77B 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: 29 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for WFC have a consensus price objective of $53.37. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $65.00 and a low of $45.00. The average price target is 10.48% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -5.96% over that period. But an upside of 26.65% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $53.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 59 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 33 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 606,876 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 26 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 308,634 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Wells Fargo & Company are Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and Dodge & Cox Stock Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index owns 115.87 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $4.78 billion. The company bought an additional 1.54 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.04% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 1.17 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 88.08 million shares valued at over $3.64 billion and representing 2.31% of the shares outstanding. Dodge & Cox Stock Fund sold -0.83 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 79.21 million shares at a value of $3.27 billion. Dodge & Cox Stock Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.08% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) opened at $47.26, down -$0.32 from a prior closing price of $47.58. However, the script later moved the day high at 47.76, up 0.21%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 3.00% and 4.70% over the past three months. WFC shares are trading 15.48% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -13.58% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $36.54 and touched a high of $60.30 over the same period. WFC has an average intraday trading volume of 18.57 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 6.70%, 8.71%, and 9.58% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) shares accounts for 74.60% of the company’s 3.80B shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 30.55%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 44.51% and 13.20% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $180.35B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.18. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 15.17, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $3.14. The company has a PEG of 2.67 and the debt-to-equity ratio at 1.00. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.14% over the week and 3.07% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) will achieve an EPS of $1.27 for the current quarter, $1.13 for the next quarter and $5.06 for 2023. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.99 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $1.63. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $1.25 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 54.90%, and 10.01% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 5.68% over the next five years, compared to 4.40% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 29 brokerage firm advisors rate Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.00. Specifically, 16 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 6 of the 29 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the WFC, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Piper Sandler stated their Neutral rating for the stock in a research note on January 17, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $49-$47. Jefferies coverage for the Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) stock in a research note released on January 17, 2023 offered a Hold rating with a price target of $46. Odeon was of a view on January 10, 2023 that the stock is Buy, while Goldman gave the stock Buy rating on October 03, 2022, issuing a price target of $46- $48. Citigroup on their part issued Buy rating on April 11, 2022.
