BlackRock Fund Advisors recently announced the acquisition of new stake in The GEO Group Inc. (NYSE:GEO). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Industrials company by 9.01% to 18.93 million shares with purchase of 1.56 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 15.26% valued currently at $142.58 million. In addition, Mason Capital Management LLC raised its holdings by 0.16 million to 5.4 million shares. And SSgA Funds Management, Inc. has lifted its position by 2.81% or 0.14 million shares – to 4.96 million shares.
With over 1.43 million The GEO Group Inc. (GEO) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $8.17 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $11.72 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -15.60% and its price on 05/22/23 lost nearly -0.61%. Currently, there are 121.43M common shares owned by the public and among those 118.21M 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: 2 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for GEO have a consensus price objective of $13.67. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $15.00 and a low of $11.00. The average price target is 40.23% above its recent price level and an upside to the estimated low will see the stock gain 25.73% over that period. But an upside of 45.53% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $15.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 41 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 24 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 915,723 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 17 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 370,443 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in The GEO Group Inc. are iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, and Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF owns 9.01 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $67.85 million. The company sold 14195.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 7.26% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF bought 64907.0 shares to see its total holdings expand to 3.66 million shares valued at over $27.52 million and representing 2.95% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund bought 3688.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 3.08 million shares at a value of $23.17 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.48% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of The GEO Group Inc. (NYSE: GEO) opened at $8.19, down -$0.03 from a prior closing price of $8.22. However, the script later moved the day high at 8.24, down -0.61%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -2.51% and -12.90% over the past three months. GEO shares are trading -25.39% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 16.71% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $5.97 and touched a high of $12.44 over the same period. GEO has an average intraday trading volume of 2.22 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 2.87%, 3.11%, and -9.81% respectively.
Institutional ownership of The GEO Group Inc. (NYSE: GEO) shares accounts for 79.00% of the company’s 121.43M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 42.75%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 6.37% and 41.80% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $1.04B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.68. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 7.50, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $1.09. The company has a PEG of 0.50 and a Quick Ratio of 1.30 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 1.61. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 3.55% over the week and 4.74% over the month.
Analysts forecast that The GEO Group Inc. (GEO) will achieve an EPS of $0.2 for the current quarter, $0.25 for the next quarter and $1.24 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.2 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.2. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.37 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 99.70%, and 33.23% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 15.00% over the next five years, compared to -2.00% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 2 brokerage firm advisors rate The GEO Group Inc. (GEO) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.50. Specifically, 2 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 0 of the 2 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
