Are Analysts Expecting A Better 2020 For American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. (AXL)?

Dimensional Fund Advisors LP has recently announced that it has increased stake in American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. (NYSE:AXL) by 8.23%. After grabbing 6.47 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 0.49 million shares of the Consumer Cyclical Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 5.64% having worth around $46.23 million. Moreover, Barrow, Hanley, Mewhinney & Strau increased its share by 0.12 million to have a control over 5.77 million shares. And Pacer Advisors, Inc. raised its holdings to 2.89 million shares by acquiring 2.89 million shares or 2.52% of the stake.

American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. (AXL) concluded trading on 05/25/23 at a closing price of $6.82, with 1.47 million shares of worth about $10.05 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained negative as price took a plunge of -33.79% during that period and on Thursday the price saw a loss of about -3.67%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 115.20M shares, out of which, 112.10M 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: 9 analysts are covering the AXL stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $9.50. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $12.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $8.00. The stock’s current price level is 25.38% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in gain of 14.75% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $12.00 would mean a gain of 43.17% 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 37 times over the past 12 months. They bought 2,119,891 shares in 15 of the transactions. In 22 selling transactions, insiders dumped 1,550,960 shares.

iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF, Fidelity Mid Cap Stock Fund, and Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. iShares Core S&P Small Cap ETF is currently holding 8.31 million shares of worth totaling $59.44 million. The company recently came selling 13345.0 shares which brought its stake up to 7.26% of the company’s outstanding shares. Fidelity Mid Cap Stock Fund sold 87516.0 shares, after which its hold over company’s outstanding shares shrunk to 3.55%, leaving 4.07 million shares with the mutual fund that have a worth of about $29.11 million. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, after buying 3.34 million shares, have now control over 2.91% of the stake in the company. It holds 0.0 shares of worth $23.87 million.

American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AXL) started trading at $7.01, below -$0.07 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 7.12, or with a loss of -3.67%. Stock saw a price change of -3.12% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of -2.71%. Year-to-date (YTD), AXL shares are showing a performance of -12.79% which increased to 0.29% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $6.61 but also hit the highest price of $11.96 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. shares is 996.67K. The stock is currently trading -3.77% below its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is down -6.68% for SMA50 and it goes to -21.02% lower than SMA200.

Dimensional Fund Advisors LP acquired 6.47 million shares of American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. having value of about $46.23 million. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by Dimensional Fund Advisors LP revealed that the firm now holds 0.49 million shares in the company valued at close to $3354833.02, or have control over 8.23% stake in the company. American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AXL) currently have 115.20M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 98.40% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 40.12% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 62.26% and 35.97% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $803.74M and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 2.25. PE ratio of stock for trailing 12 months is 14.27, while it has posted earnings per share of $0.48 in the same period. Its PEG reads 0.58 and has Quick Ratio of 1.30 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 4.66. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for AXL, volatility over the week remained 4.09% while standing at 3.99% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. (AXL) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $0.1 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $0.17 and it is $0.85 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $0.06 which is $0.18 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 $0.22 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to rise by 967.50% while it is estimated to increase by 125.40% in next year. EPS is likely to grow at an annualized rate of 24.70% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of -29.30% made by the stock over the past 5-years.

Analysts at 9 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. (AXL)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Moderate Buy” and assign it a score of 2.80. Out of those 9 Wall Street analysts, 2 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 7 were in favor recommending the stock as a “Hold” and 0 analyst recommended the stock as “Sell”.