Jefferies Financial Group Begins Coverage on Veralto (NYSE:VLTO)

Research analysts at Jefferies Financial Group started coverage on shares of Veralto (NYSE:VLTO) in a research report issued on Thursday, MarketBeat reports. The firm set a “buy” rating and a $125.00 price target on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group’s target price would indicate a potential upside of 19.94% from the company’s current price.

VLTO has been the topic of several other reports. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on shares of Veralto from $117.00 to $119.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on shares of Veralto from $119.00 to $117.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on Veralto from $108.00 to $111.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Friday, October 25th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $109.50.

Veralto Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:VLTO opened at $104.22 on Thursday. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $107.18 and its 200-day simple moving average is $105.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35, a quick ratio of 1.87 and a current ratio of 2.13. Veralto has a one year low of $73.91 and a one year high of $115.00. The firm has a market cap of $25.77 billion, a PE ratio of 32.17, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.35 and a beta of 0.91.

Veralto (NYSE:VLTO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 23rd. The company reported $0.89 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.85 by $0.04. Veralto had a return on equity of 52.85% and a net margin of 15.69%. The company had revenue of $1.31 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.30 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.75 EPS. Veralto’s quarterly revenue was up 4.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts predict that Veralto will post 3.48 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Jennifer Honeycutt sold 13,190 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $110.15, for a total value of $1,452,878.50. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 138,546 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,260,841.90. This represents a 8.69 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, SVP Surekha Trivedi sold 752 shares of Veralto stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $102.91, for a total transaction of $77,388.32. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 10,413 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,071,601.83. The trade was a 6.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 14,695 shares of company stock worth $1,615,017 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.31% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Veralto

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Veralto by 9.8% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 9,599,499 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,074,654,000 after acquiring an additional 860,608 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Veralto by 10.5% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,868,620 shares of the company’s stock valued at $654,232,000 after purchasing an additional 558,393 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its holdings in Veralto by 5.0% during the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 4,178,777 shares of the company’s stock worth $398,948,000 after buying an additional 200,657 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its position in Veralto by 5.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,329,717 shares of the company’s stock valued at $372,462,000 after buying an additional 162,347 shares during the period. Finally, Janus Henderson Group PLC increased its holdings in Veralto by 0.4% in the third quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 2,885,996 shares of the company’s stock valued at $322,827,000 after buying an additional 11,430 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.28% of the company’s stock.

Veralto Company Profile

Veralto Corporation provides water analytics, water treatment, marking and coding, and packaging and color services worldwide. It operates through two segments, Water Quality (WQ) and Product Quality & Innovation (PQI). The WQ segment offers precision instrumentation and water treatment technologies to measure, analyze, and treat water in residential, commercial, municipal, industrial, research, and natural resource applications through the Hach, Trojan Technologies, and ChemTreat brands.