Northern Trust Investments, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Kellogg Company (NYSE:K). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Consumer Defensive company by 1,451.53% to 55.53 million shares with purchase of 51.95 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 16.25% valued currently at $3.66 billion. In addition, The Vanguard Group, Inc. raised its holdings by 0.42 million to 29.63 million shares. And BlackRock Fund Advisors has lifted its position by 19.21% or 3.53 million shares – to 21.9 million shares.
With over 2.25 million Kellogg Company (K) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $64.65 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $145.49 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -11.00% and its price on 03/14/23 gained nearly 0.61%. Currently, there are 346.55M common shares owned by the public and among those 317.19M 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: 20 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for K have a consensus price objective of $72.67. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $82.00 and a low of $61.00. The average price target is 11.9% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -5.98% over that period. But an upside of 21.16% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $73.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 92 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 39 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 620,754 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 53 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 3,216,700 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Kellogg Company are Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund, and Vanguard 500 Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index owns 7.83 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $516.41 million. The company bought an additional 47207.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 2.29% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund bought 9589.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 5.97 million shares valued at over $393.77 million and representing 1.75% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 14036.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 5.93 million shares at a value of $391.09 million. Vanguard 500 Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 1.74% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Kellogg Company (NYSE: K) opened at $64.58, up $0.32 from a prior closing price of $64.26. However, the script later moved the day high at 64.71, up 0.61%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 0.17% and -10.63% over the past three months. K shares are trading -9.25% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 8.02% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $59.54 and touched a high of $77.17 over the same period. K has an average intraday trading volume of 2.06 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 -2.58%, -4.86%, and -9.10% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Kellogg Company (NYSE: K) shares accounts for 85.60% of the company’s 346.55M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 47.27%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 65.08% and 38.59% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $22.23B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.43. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 23.04, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $2.81. The company has a PEG of 9.67 and a Quick Ratio of 0.40 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 1.67. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.70% over the week and 1.56% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Kellogg Company (K) will achieve an EPS of $1.05 for the current quarter, $1.16 for the next quarter and $4.32 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.92 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $1.11. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $1.1 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -35.60%, and 5.52% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 2.38% over the next five years, compared to -5.00% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 20 brokerage firm advisors rate Kellogg Company (K) as a “Hold” at a consensus score of 3.10. Specifically, 2 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 13 of the 20 advise that investors “hold,” and 3 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the K, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Exane BNP Paribas stated their Underperform rating for the stock in a research note on November 15, 2022, with the firm’s price target at $66. Piper Sandler coverage for the Kellogg Company (K) stock in a research note released on August 05, 2022 offered a Overweight rating with a price target of $74. UBS was of a view on July 07, 2022 that the stock is Neutral, while Piper Sandler gave the stock Underweight rating on May 03, 2022, issuing a price target of $66- $62. Deutsche Bank on their part issued Hold rating on April 25, 2022.
