East West Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ: EWBC): Do Not Miss The Gain Train

The Vanguard Group, Inc. has recently announced that it has increased stake in East West Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ:EWBC) by 2.10%. After grabbing 14.78 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 0.3 million shares of the Financial Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 10.48% having worth around $763.78 million. Moreover, BlackRock Fund Advisors increased its share by 0.12 million to have a control over 11.93 million shares. And Fidelity Management & Research Co raised its holdings to 1.32 million shares by acquiring 6.81 million shares or 4.83% of the stake.

East West Bancorp Inc. (EWBC) concluded trading on 05/24/23 at a closing price of $49.93, with 0.97 million shares of worth about $48.63 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained negative as price took a plunge of -26.57% during that period and on Wednesday the price saw a loss of about -1.56%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 141.11M shares, out of which, 139.79M shares are available for trading.

A deeper look into what the analysts at Wall Street are thinking about the price target of this stock provides us with the following: 12 analysts are covering the EWBC stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $67.18. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $81.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $54.00. The stock’s current price level is 25.68% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in gain of 7.54% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $81.00 would mean a gain of 38.36% for the stock.

According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), insiders took part in trade of the company’s stock for 36 times over the past 12 months. They bought 363,254 shares in 28 of the transactions. In 8 selling transactions, insiders dumped 141,809 shares.

American Balanced Fund, iShares Core S&P Mid Cap ETF, and Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in East West Bancorp Inc. American Balanced Fund is currently holding 4.92 million shares of worth totaling $254.27 million. The company recently came buying 0.0 shares which brought its stake up to 3.49% of the company’s outstanding shares. iShares Core S&P Mid Cap ETF bought 15714.0 shares, after which its hold over company’s outstanding shares expand to 3.12%, leaving 4.4 million shares with the mutual fund that have a worth of about $227.35 million. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, after buying 4.38 million shares, have now control over 3.10% of the stake in the company. It holds 17679.0 shares of worth $226.15 million.

East West Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ: EWBC) started trading at $49.99, below -$0.73 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 50.38, or with a loss of -1.56%. Stock saw a price change of 2.21% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of -2.50%. Year-to-date (YTD), EWBC shares are showing a performance of -24.23% which decreased to -29.50% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $33.86 but also hit the highest price of $80.98 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for East West Bancorp Inc. shares is 2.00 million. The stock is currently trading 5.74% above its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is down -3.46% for SMA50 and it goes to -24.52% lower than SMA200.

The Vanguard Group, Inc. acquired 14.78 million shares of East West Bancorp Inc. having value of about $763.78 million. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by The Vanguard Group, Inc. revealed that the firm now holds 0.3 million shares in the company valued at close to $15193249.63, or have control over 2.10% stake in the company. East West Bancorp Inc. (NASDAQ: EWBC) currently have 141.11M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 91.10% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 30.44% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 60.21% and 2.80% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $7.21B and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 1.39. PE ratio of stock for trailing 12 months is 5.85, while it has posted earnings per share of $8.54 in the same period. Its PEG reads 0.73 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 0.02. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for EWBC, volatility over the week remained 3.46% while standing at 4.53% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that East West Bancorp Inc. (EWBC) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $2.22 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $2.15 and it is $8.38 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $2.13 which is $2.32 at the higher side of the target for the same. When we compare those targets with actual EPS, we find that company posted an EPS of $1.81 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to rise by 29.80% while it is estimated to decrease by -4.73% in next year. EPS is likely to shrink at an annualized rate of 8.00% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of 16.10% made by the stock over the past 5-years.

Analysts at 12 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the East West Bancorp Inc. (EWBC)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Moderate Buy” and assign it a score of 2.00. Out of those 12 Wall Street analysts, 8 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 4 were in favor recommending the stock as a “Hold” and 0 analyst recommended the stock as “Sell”.