The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Vertex Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:VTNR). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Energy company by 11.91% to 3.55 million shares with purchase of 0.38 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 4.69% valued currently at $28.01 million. In addition, Castleknight Management LP raised its holdings by 0.14 million to 1.28 million shares. And Geode Capital Management LLC has lifted its position by 2.60% or 27485.0 shares – to 1.09 million shares.
With over 1.61 million Vertex Energy Inc. (VTNR) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $7.00 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $11.25 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -15.46% and its price on 05/22/23 gained nearly 1.16%. Currently, there are 75.69M common shares owned by the public and among those 61.26M 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: 7 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for VTNR have a consensus price objective of $12.29. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $15.00 and a low of $8.00. The average price target is 43.04% above its recent price level and an upside to the estimated low will see the stock gain 12.5% over that period. But an upside of 53.33% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $13.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 23 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 6 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 346,000 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 17 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 934,119 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Vertex Energy Inc. are SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration &, Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, and iShares Russell 2000 ETF. SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & owns 3.4 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $26.88 million. The company bought an additional 62480.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 4.50% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF bought 0.16 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 1.97 million shares valued at over $15.56 million and representing 2.60% of the shares outstanding. iShares Russell 2000 ETF sold 16880.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 1.15 million shares at a value of $9.12 million. iShares Russell 2000 ETF now owns shares totaling to 1.53% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Vertex Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: VTNR) opened at $6.91, down -$0.01 from a prior closing price of $6.92. However, the script later moved the day high at 7.10, up 1.16%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 2.04% and -9.79% over the past three months. VTNR shares are trading 12.90% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -53.27% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $5.42 and touched a high of $18.10 over the same period. VTNR has an average intraday trading volume of 2.88 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 -2.81%, -13.00%, and -9.70% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Vertex Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: VTNR) shares accounts for 54.80% of the company’s 75.69M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 18.27%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 25.10% and 11.41% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $548.45M and a beta (3y monthly) value of 2.11. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$0.12. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 5.83% over the week and 6.24% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Vertex Energy Inc. (VTNR) will achieve an EPS of $0.09 for the current quarter, $0.32 for the next quarter and $1.21 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$0.24 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.24. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was -$0.98 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 50.30%, and -4.19% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 20.00% over the next five years, compared to 7.80% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 7 brokerage firm advisors rate Vertex Energy Inc. (VTNR) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.00. Specifically, 5 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 2 of the 7 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
