Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE: SF) – Not A Clear Buying Opportunity?

The Vanguard Group, Inc. has recently announced that it has increased stake in Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE:SF) by 1.65%. After grabbing 10.46 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 0.17 million shares of the Financial Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 9.81% having worth around $627.51 million. Moreover, Capital Research & Management Co increased its share by 1121.0 to have a control over 6.09 million shares. And SSgA Funds Management, Inc. raised its holdings to 22785.0 shares by acquiring 2.96 million shares or 2.78% of the stake.

Stifel Financial Corp. (SF) concluded trading on 05/25/23 at a closing price of $57.40, with 1.02 million shares of worth about $58.37 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained negative as price took a plunge of -10.40% during that period and on Thursday the price saw a gain of about 1.04%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 108.75M shares, out of which, 103.12M 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: 7 analysts are covering the SF stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $71.20. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $91.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $62.00. The stock’s current price level is 19.38% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in gain of 7.42% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $91.00 would mean a gain of 36.92% 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 59 times over the past 12 months. They bought 439,959 shares in 37 of the transactions. In 22 selling transactions, insiders dumped 231,792 shares.

American Funds AMCAP 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 Stifel Financial Corp. American Funds AMCAP Fund is currently holding 4.29 million shares of worth totaling $257.15 million. The company recently came buying 0.0 shares which brought its stake up to 4.02% of the company’s outstanding shares. iShares Core S&P Mid Cap ETF bought 11744.0 shares, after which its hold over company’s outstanding shares expand to 3.08%, leaving 3.29 million shares with the mutual fund that have a worth of about $197.15 million. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, after buying 3.15 million shares, have now control over 2.95% of the stake in the company. It holds 14213.0 shares of worth $188.96 million.

Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE: SF) started trading at $56.58, below -$0.23 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 57.43, or with a gain of 1.04%. Stock saw a price change of -2.65% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of -0.61%. Year-to-date (YTD), SF shares are showing a performance of -1.66% which decreased to -6.39% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $49.31 but also hit the highest price of $68.77 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for Stifel Financial Corp. shares is 817.63K. The stock is currently trading -1.16% below its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is down -1.66% for SMA50 and it goes to -5.04% lower than SMA200.

The Vanguard Group, Inc. acquired 10.46 million shares of Stifel Financial Corp. having value of about $627.51 million. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by The Vanguard Group, Inc. revealed that the firm now holds 0.17 million shares in the company valued at close to $9771431.6, or have control over 1.65% stake in the company. Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE: SF) currently have 108.75M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 85.90% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 45.94% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 8.02% and 37.39% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $6.12B and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 1.25. PE ratio of stock for trailing 12 months is 11.01, while it has posted earnings per share of $5.21 in the same period. Its PEG reads 0.78 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 6.59. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for SF, volatility over the week remained 2.27% while standing at 2.23% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that Stifel Financial Corp. (SF) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $1.48 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $1.66 and it is $7.44 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $1.39 which is $1.69 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 $1.4 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to drop by -20.20% while it is estimated to increase by 13.69% in next year. EPS is likely to shrink at an annualized rate of 14.18% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of 24.50% made by the stock over the past 5-years.

Analysts at 7 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the Stifel Financial Corp. (SF)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Moderate Buy” and assign it a score of 2.50. Out of those 7 Wall Street analysts, 2 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 4 were in favor recommending the stock as a “Hold” and 0 analyst recommended the stock as “Sell”.