BNP Paribas Asset Management UK L recently announced the acquisition of new stake in AppHarvest Inc. (NASDAQ:APPH). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Consumer Defensive company by 20.92% to 8.22 million shares with purchase of 1.42 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 5.58% valued currently at $8.39 million. In addition, BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings by 98155.0 to 4.42 million shares. And The Vanguard Group, Inc. has lifted its position by 2.19% or 77115.0 shares – to 3.6 million shares.
With over 4.45 million AppHarvest Inc. (APPH) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $0.71 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $3.16 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -73.36% and its price on 03/10/23 lost nearly -9.49%. Currently, there are 147.28M common shares owned by the public and among those 121.15M 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: 3 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for APPH have a consensus price objective of $1.63. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $2.00 and a low of $1.25. The average price target is 56.17% above its recent price level and an upside to the estimated low will see the stock gain 43.2% over that period. But an upside of 64.5% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $1.63.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 19 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 11 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 1,205,496 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 8 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 340,975 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in AppHarvest Inc. are BNP Paribas Funds – Energy Transi, BNP Paribas Funds – Ecosystem Res, and Vanguard Total Stock Market Index. BNP Paribas Funds – Energy Transi owns 4.19 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $4.27 million. BNP Paribas Funds – Ecosystem Res bought 0.59 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 2.5 million shares valued at over $2.55 million and representing 1.70% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index bought 0.13 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 2.48 million shares at a value of $2.53 million. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index now owns shares totaling to 1.68% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of AppHarvest Inc. (NASDAQ: APPH) opened at $0.86, up $0.08 from a prior closing price of $0.78. However, the script later moved the day high at 0.8800, down -9.49%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -30.78% and -20.37% over the past three months. APPH shares are trading 24.43% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -84.82% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $0.47 and touched a high of $7.05 over the same period. APPH has an average intraday trading volume of 3.73 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 -26.51%, -46.58%, and -67.79% respectively.
Institutional ownership of AppHarvest Inc. (NASDAQ: APPH) shares accounts for 38.20% of the company’s 147.28M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 24.72%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 7.94% and 14.07% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $114.90M. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$1.68. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 13.92% over the week and 10.95% over the month.
Analysts forecast that AppHarvest Inc. (APPH) will achieve an EPS of -$0.35 for the current quarter, -$0.23 for the next quarter and -$0.59 for 2023. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$0.39 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of -$0.3. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was -$0.27 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -28.00%, and 61.10% over the next financial year.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 3 brokerage firm advisors rate AppHarvest Inc. (APPH) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.70. Specifically, 1 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 2 of the 3 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Oppenheimer was of a view on August 26, 2021 that the stock is Outperform, while Barclays gave the stock Overweight rating on June 16, 2021, issuing a price target of $25. Cowen on their part issued Outperform rating on February 11, 2021.
