Handle With Care: Ferguson plc (NYSE: FERG)

The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Ferguson plc (NYSE:FERG). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Industrials company by 348.19% to 23.94 million shares with purchase of 18.6 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 11.62% valued currently at $3.37 billion. In addition, Fidelity Management & Research Co raised its holdings by 0.9 million to 6.87 million shares. And BlackRock Fund Advisors has lifted its position by 3.02% or 0.15 million shares – to 4.97 million shares.

With over 1.39 million Ferguson plc (FERG) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $150.50 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $209.52 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 30.45% and its price on 05/22/23 gained nearly 1.31%. Currently, there are 207.10M common shares owned by the public and among those 204.08M shares have been available to trade.

Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 39 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 26 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 143,615 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 13 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 78,517 shares.

The top 3 mutual fund holders in Ferguson plc are Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP, Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, and Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund. Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP owns 6.65 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $936.44 million. The company sold 86845.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.23% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF sold 24177.0 shares to see its total holdings shrink to 6.43 million shares valued at over $905.9 million and representing 3.12% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund sold 44536.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 4.85 million shares at a value of $683.02 million. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.35% of the shares outstanding.

Shares of Ferguson plc (NYSE: FERG) opened at $148.56, up $0.01 from a prior closing price of $148.55. However, the script later moved the day high at 151.00, up 1.31%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 2.08% and 4.78% over the past three months. FERG shares are trading 18.53% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 27.39% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $99.16 and touched a high of $149.89 over the same period. FERG has an average intraday trading volume of 1.29 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 5.95%, 11.30%, and 18.41% respectively.

Institutional ownership of Ferguson plc (NYSE: FERG) shares accounts for 77.10% of the company’s 207.10M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 20.68%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 59.01% and — respectively.

It has a market capitalization of $31.12B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.18. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 15.26, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $9.86. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.73% over the week and 1.67% over the month.

Analysts forecast that Ferguson plc (FERG) will achieve an EPS of $2.17 for the current quarter, $2.42 for the next quarter and $9.22 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $2.08 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $2.35. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 32.20%, and -2.12% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of -2.90% over the next five years, compared to 18.20% over the past 5-year period.