Following The Money: Institution’s Growing Stake In Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CCO)

Ares Management LLC has recently announced that it has increased stake in Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. (NYSE:CCO) by 12.45%. After grabbing 55.83 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 6.18 million shares of the Communication Services Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 11.69% having worth around $70.9 million. Moreover, The Vanguard Group, Inc. increased its share by 0.6 million to have a control over 43.34 million shares. And BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings to 14656.0 shares by acquiring 24.72 million shares or 5.18% of the stake.

Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. (CCO) concluded trading on 05/24/23 at a closing price of $1.28, with 1.54 million shares of worth about $1.97 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained positive as price took a surge of 17.43% during that period and on Wednesday the price saw a loss of about -1.54%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 498.74M shares, out of which, 474.06M 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: 6 analysts are covering the CCO stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $1.69. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $2.50 and could fall to a lowest price of $1.20. The stock’s current price level is 24.26% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in loss of -6.67% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $2.50 would mean a gain of 48.8% 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 97 times over the past 12 months. They bought 22,863,731 shares in 79 of the transactions. In 18 selling transactions, insiders dumped 1,767,268 shares.

Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Victory Port. – Floating Rate Fun, and Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF is currently holding 11.06 million shares of worth totaling $14.05 million. The company recently came buying 0.0 shares which brought its stake up to 2.32% of the company’s outstanding shares. Victory Port. – Floating Rate Fun bought 0.97 million shares, after which its hold over company’s outstanding shares expand to 2.30%, leaving 10.96 million shares with the mutual fund that have a worth of about $13.92 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund, after selling 9.29 million shares, have now control over 1.95% of the stake in the company. It holds 2286.0 shares of worth $11.8 million.

However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 1.3200, or with a loss of -1.54%. Stock saw a price change of 3.23% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of 6.67%. Year-to-date (YTD), CCO shares are showing a performance of 21.90% which decreased to -24.26% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $0.91 but also hit the highest price of $2.14 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. shares is 2.42 million. The stock is currently trading 5.61% above its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is up 9.33% for SMA50 and it goes to -8.04% lower than SMA200.

Ares Management LLC acquired 55.83 million shares of Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. having value of about $70.9 million. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by Ares Management LLC revealed that the firm now holds 6.18 million shares in the company valued at close to $7909657.6, or have control over 12.45% stake in the company. Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CCO) currently have 498.74M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 100.99% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 36.39% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 77.23% and 25.47% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $598.22M and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 2.51. It has posted earnings per share of -$0.09 in the same period. It has Quick Ratio of 1.00. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for CCO, volatility over the week remained 6.15% while standing at 8.33% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. (CCO) stock would likely to be making an EPS of -$0.06 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is -$0.07 and it is -$0.21 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target -$0.08 which is -$0.02 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 -$0.14 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to rise by 78.00% while it is estimated to increase by 4.50% in next year. EPS is likely to shrink at an annualized rate of 7.00% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of 39.00% made by the stock over the past 5-years.

Analysts at 6 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. (CCO)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Moderate Buy” and assign it a score of 2.70. Out of those 6 Wall Street analysts, 2 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 3 were in favor recommending the stock as a “Hold” and 1 analyst recommended the stock as “Sell”.