Morgan Stanley Reaffirms “Overweight” Rating for Hasbro (NASDAQ:HAS)

Hasbro (NASDAQ:HAS)‘s stock had its “overweight” rating reissued by stock analysts at Morgan Stanley in a report released on Friday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $84.00 target price on the stock, down from their prior target price of $88.00. Morgan Stanley’s price objective points to a potential upside of 24.33% from the stock’s current price.

HAS has been the topic of several other reports. Roth Mkm upped their price target on Hasbro from $68.00 to $82.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target on Hasbro from $82.00 to $77.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Finally, DA Davidson upped their price target on Hasbro from $59.00 to $73.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, October 25th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Hasbro presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $80.00.

Hasbro Stock Performance

Hasbro stock opened at $67.56 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $9.42 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.60 and a beta of 0.64. The company has a current ratio of 1.60, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.85. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $58.42 and a 200-day moving average of $64.20. Hasbro has a 52 week low of $48.63 and a 52 week high of $73.46.

Hasbro (NASDAQ:HAS) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The company reported $0.46 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.36 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $1.10 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.02 billion. Hasbro had a return on equity of 47.93% and a net margin of 9.32%. On average, analysts expect that Hasbro will post 4.33 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Hasbro news, EVP Matthew Edward Austin sold 1,718 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $65.06, for a total value of $111,773.08. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 36,828 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,396,029.68. This trade represents a 4.46 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 0.82% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of HAS. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Hasbro by 28,552.6% during the fourth quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 2,789,613 shares of the company’s stock valued at $155,967,000 after purchasing an additional 2,779,877 shares during the period. Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC increased its holdings in shares of Hasbro by 313.8% during the fourth quarter. Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC now owns 3,200,860 shares of the company’s stock valued at $178,960,000 after purchasing an additional 2,427,299 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Hasbro during the fourth quarter valued at $96,359,000. Mizuho Securities USA LLC increased its holdings in shares of Hasbro by 9,806.9% during the third quarter. Mizuho Securities USA LLC now owns 1,000,000 shares of the company’s stock valued at $72,320,000 after purchasing an additional 989,906 shares during the period. Finally, Invesco Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Hasbro by 28.5% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,159,524 shares of the company’s stock valued at $176,649,000 after purchasing an additional 701,660 shares during the period. 91.83% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Hasbro

Hasbro, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a toy and game company in the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, Latin America, Australia, China, and Hong Kong. The company operates through Consumer Products; Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming; Entertainment; and Corporate and Other segments.