Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT): Not A Time To Panic Nor Freeze

SSgA Funds Management, Inc. has recently announced that it has increased stake in Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) by 0.47%. After grabbing 37.97 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 0.18 million shares of the Industrials Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 14.99% having worth around $17.64 billion. Moreover, Fidelity Management & Research Co increased its share by 0.15 million to have a control over 6.28 million shares.

Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) concluded trading on 05/25/23 at a closing price of $442.83, with 1.2 million shares of worth about $533.29 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained negative as price took a plunge of -7.65% during that period and on Thursday the price saw a loss of about -2.18%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 254.70M shares, out of which, 254.34M 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: 26 analysts are covering the LMT stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $505.32. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $579.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $371.00. The stock’s current price level is 12.77% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in loss of -19.36% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $579.00 would mean a gain of 23.52% 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 72 times over the past 12 months. They bought 85,114 shares in 37 of the transactions. In 35 selling transactions, insiders dumped 61,797 shares.

Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and American Funds Income Fund of Ame are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in Lockheed Martin Corporation Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF is currently holding 7.76 million shares of worth totaling $3.6 billion. The company recently came buying 29643.0 shares which brought its stake up to 3.06% of the company’s outstanding shares. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 28395.0 shares, after which its hold over company’s outstanding shares expand to 2.04%, leaving 5.16 million shares with the mutual fund that have a worth of about $2.4 billion. American Funds Income Fund of Ame, after selling 4.23 million shares, have now control over 1.67% of the stake in the company. It holds 90042.0 shares of worth $1.97 billion.

Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE: LMT) started trading at $451.50, below -$1.22 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 451.50, or with a loss of -2.18%. Stock saw a price change of -2.83% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of -4.07%. Year-to-date (YTD), LMT shares are showing a performance of -8.97% which increased to 0.01% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $373.67 but also hit the highest price of $508.10 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for Lockheed Martin Corporation shares is 1.23 million. The stock is currently trading -2.71% below its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is down -5.89% for SMA50 and it goes to -3.49% lower than SMA200.

SSgA Funds Management, Inc. acquired 37.97 million shares of Lockheed Martin Corporation having value of about $17.64 billion. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by SSgA Funds Management, Inc. revealed that the firm now holds 0.18 million shares in the company valued at close to $78265331.37, or have control over 0.47% stake in the company. Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE: LMT) currently have 254.70M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 76.30% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 33.70% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 41.85% and 0.46% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $113.02B and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 0.67. PE ratio of stock for trailing 12 months is 20.23, while it has posted earnings per share of $21.89 in the same period. Its PEG reads 2.01 and has Quick Ratio of 1.10 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 1.62. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for LMT, volatility over the week remained 1.56% while standing at 1.40% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $6.42 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $6.74 and it is $28.09 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $6.15 which is $6.74 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 $1.16 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to drop by -4.80% while it is estimated to increase by 3.42% in next year. EPS is likely to shrink at an annualized rate of 10.04% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of 10.80% made by the stock over the past 5-years.

Analysts at 26 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Moderate Buy” and assign it a score of 2.70. Out of those 26 Wall Street analysts, 8 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 15 were in favor recommending the stock as a “Hold” and 2 analyst recommended the stock as “Sell”.