Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) PT Raised to $289.00 at Wells Fargo & Company

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) had its target price hoisted by equities researchers at Wells Fargo & Company from $260.00 to $289.00 in a report released on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an “equal weight” rating on the electronics maker’s stock. Wells Fargo & Company‘s price objective points to a potential upside of 5.64% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently commented on the stock. Robert W. Baird reduced their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $286.00 to $280.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, June 18th. StockNews.com cut shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 27th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $286.25.

Acuity Brands Trading Up 0.7 %

NYSE AYI traded up $1.88 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $273.58. 42,141 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 248,585. Acuity Brands has a one year low of $156.84 and a one year high of $275.05. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $247.68 and a 200-day simple moving average of $252.64. The stock has a market cap of $8.42 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.24, a P/E/G ratio of 1.62 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a current ratio of 2.77 and a quick ratio of 2.15.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, June 27th. The electronics maker reported $4.15 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.82 by $0.33. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 10.12% and a return on equity of 20.97%. The business had revenue of $968.10 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $996.52 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $3.50 earnings per share. Acuity Brands’s quarterly revenue was down 3.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands will post 14.26 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in AYI. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at about $649,000. Assetmark Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 900.0% during the fourth quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 250 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $51,000 after buying an additional 225 shares during the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 25.8% during the fourth quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 47,372 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $9,703,000 after buying an additional 9,729 shares during the last quarter. US Bancorp DE grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 8.9% during the fourth quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 3,739 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $766,000 after buying an additional 304 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Hsbc Holdings PLC grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 246.0% during the fourth quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 9,900 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $2,027,000 after buying an additional 7,039 shares during the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Acuity Brands Company Profile

Acuity Brands, Inc provides lighting, lighting controls, building management system, location-aware applications in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Acuity Brands Lighting and Lighting Controls (ABL); and the Intelligent Spaces Group (ISG). The ABL segment provides commercial, architectural, and specialty lighting solutions, as well as lighting controls and components for various indoor and outdoor applications under the A-Light, Aculux, American Electric Lighting, Cyclone, Dark to Light, eldoLED, Eureka, Gotham, Healthcare Lighting, Holophane, Hydrel, Indy, IOTA, Juno, Lithonia Lighting, Luminaire LED, Luminis, Mark Architectural Lighting, nLight, OPTOTRONIC, Peerless, RELOCWiring Solutions, and Sensor Switch.