The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Healthcare company by 1.22% to 24.01 million shares with purchase of 0.29 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 8.11% valued currently at $3.41 billion. In addition, Wellington Management Co. LLP raised its holdings by 40208.0 to 13.41 million shares. And Massachusetts Financial Services has lifted its position by 21.45% or 1.39 million shares – to 7.87 million shares.
With over 1.77 million Agilent Technologies Inc. (A) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $136.69 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $241.55 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -0.68% and its price on 03/13/23 gained nearly 0.71%. Currently, there are 296.00M common shares owned by the public and among those 294.19M shares have been available to trade.
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The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $174.00 and a low of $150.00. The average price target is 16.8% above its recent price level and an upside to the estimated low will see the stock gain 8.87% over that period. But an upside of 21.44% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $168.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 114 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 38 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 520,981 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 76 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 442,442 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Agilent Technologies Inc. are Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and T Rowe Price Mid Cap Growth Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index owns 9.04 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $1.28 billion. The company bought an additional 69825.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.05% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 16237.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 6.86 million shares valued at over $973.83 million and representing 2.32% of the shares outstanding. T Rowe Price Mid Cap Growth Fund sold 92600.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 4.6 million shares at a value of $652.95 million. T Rowe Price Mid Cap Growth Fund now owns shares totaling to 1.55% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) opened at $135.55, down -$0.17 from a prior closing price of $135.72. However, the script later moved the day high at 138.28, up 0.71%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -4.57% and -12.54% over the past three months. A shares are trading -8.66% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 1.76% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $112.52 and touched a high of $160.26 over the same period. A has an average intraday trading volume of 1.30 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 -5.23%, -8.79%, and -0.27% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) shares accounts for 90.70% of the company’s 296.00M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 34.02%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 56.97% and 1.49% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $41.38B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.05. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 30.82, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $4.43. The company has a PEG of 2.25 and a Quick Ratio of 1.50 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.53. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 2.57% over the week and 2.18% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Agilent Technologies Inc. (A) will achieve an EPS of $1.3 for the current quarter, $1.27 for the next quarter and $6.31 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $1.29 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $1.32. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $1.21 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 6.10%, and 10.83% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 13.67% over the next five years, compared to 14.80% over the past 5-year period.
Looking at the support for the A, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Wells Fargo stated their Overweight rating for the stock in a research note on January 10, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $170. Credit Suisse coverage for the Agilent Technologies Inc. (A) stock in a research note released on August 25, 2022 offered a Outperform rating with a price target of $165. UBS was of a view on July 20, 2022 that the stock is Buy, while Citigroup gave the stock Neutral rating on July 08, 2022, issuing a price target of $175- $140. Wells Fargo on their part issued Equal Weight rating on April 25, 2022.
