The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Waste Management Inc. (NYSE:WM). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Industrials company by 1.37% to 35.85 million shares with purchase of 0.49 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 8.78% valued currently at $5.95 billion. In addition, SSgA Funds Management, Inc. raised its holdings by 0.68 million to 18.54 million shares. And Geode Capital Management LLC has lifted its position by 0.49% or 34007.0 shares – to 7.02 million shares.
With over 1.24 million Waste Management Inc. (WM) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $162.78 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $201.33 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 0.99% and its price on 05/23/23 lost nearly -0.93%. Currently, there are 407.40M common shares owned by the public and among those 405.67M shares have been available to trade.
25-cent Stock Takes $11T Commodities Sector Digital
One brilliantly-run technology firm has successfully partnered with some of the largest players in the industry to bring a first-of-its-kind digital solution to the global commodities supply chain sector. Best of all, this upstart technology firm is currently trading undiscovered — below 25-cents per share — so very, very few investors know about it yet! For investors… it's an early-stage opportunity in a company that's bringing the US$11T global commodities sector straight into the 21st century.
All the details are in the FREE online report you can get here.
Sponsored
An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 22 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for WM have a consensus price objective of $176.61. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $200.00 and a low of $162.00. The average price target is 7.83% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -0.48% over that period. But an upside of 18.61% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $176.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 79 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 391,200 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 40 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 275,036 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Waste Management Inc. are Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and Fidelity 500 Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF owns 12.64 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $2.1 billion. The company bought an additional 14125.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.10% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund sold 5747.0 shares to see its total holdings shrink to 8.67 million shares valued at over $1.44 billion and representing 2.13% of the shares outstanding. Fidelity 500 Index Fund bought 14985.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 4.11 million shares at a value of $682.44 million. Fidelity 500 Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 1.01% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Waste Management Inc. (NYSE: WM) opened at $163.73, down -$0.57 from a prior closing price of $164.30. However, the script later moved the day high at 163.93, down -0.93%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -2.95% and 6.99% over the past three months. WM shares are trading 3.76% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 5.36% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $138.89 and touched a high of $175.98 over the same period. WM has an average intraday trading volume of 1.74 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 -2.53%, 0.04%, and 0.93% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Waste Management Inc. (NYSE: WM) shares accounts for 87.80% of the company’s 407.40M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 39.30%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 42.72% and 1.11% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $66.08B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.73. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 29.77, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $5.47. The company has a PEG of 3.52 and a Quick Ratio of 0.80 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 2.26. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.25% over the week and 1.32% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Waste Management Inc. (WM) will achieve an EPS of $1.55 for the current quarter, $1.67 for the next quarter and $6.76 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $1.42 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $1.64. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $1.44 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 25.60%, and 11.73% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 8.46% over the next five years, compared to -1.30% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 22 brokerage firm advisors rate Waste Management Inc. (WM) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.30. Specifically, 8 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 11 of the 22 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
