Raymond James Financial Inc. Purchases Shares of 180,187 AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. (NYSE:AB)

Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new stake in AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. (NYSE:AB) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund purchased 180,187 shares of the asset manager’s stock, valued at approximately $6,683,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. owned 0.16% of AllianceBernstein at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vision Financial Markets LLC purchased a new stake in AllianceBernstein in the 4th quarter valued at about $215,000. M&T Bank Corp grew its holdings in shares of AllianceBernstein by 3.3% during the 4th quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 42,540 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $1,578,000 after purchasing an additional 1,372 shares during the period. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC grew its holdings in shares of AllianceBernstein by 22.8% during the 4th quarter. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 5,946 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $221,000 after purchasing an additional 1,103 shares during the period. Jones Financial Companies Lllp grew its holdings in shares of AllianceBernstein by 143.5% during the 4th quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 2,710 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $101,000 after purchasing an additional 1,597 shares during the period. Finally, Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. grew its holdings in shares of AllianceBernstein by 23.5% during the 4th quarter. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. now owns 23,788 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $882,000 after purchasing an additional 4,526 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 19.25% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on AB. Sanford C. Bernstein set a $45.00 target price on AllianceBernstein in a report on Thursday, January 16th. TD Cowen cut AllianceBernstein from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $38.00 to $38.50 in a report on Tuesday, February 25th. Finally, Barclays decreased their target price on AllianceBernstein from $39.00 to $36.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, December 9th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $42.75.

AllianceBernstein Stock Performance

AllianceBernstein stock opened at $38.01 on Monday. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $37.65 and its 200 day moving average price is $36.63. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.20 billion, a PE ratio of 10.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.78 and a beta of 1.25. AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. has a one year low of $30.57 and a one year high of $41.37.

AllianceBernstein (NYSE:AB) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 6th. The asset manager reported $1.05 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.18. AllianceBernstein had a return on equity of 17.88% and a net margin of 9.46%. On average, analysts forecast that AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. will post 3.58 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AllianceBernstein Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 13th. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 18th were given a dividend of $1.05 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 18th. This is a positive change from AllianceBernstein’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.77. This represents a $4.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 11.05%. AllianceBernstein’s payout ratio is 112.90%.

AllianceBernstein Company Profile

AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm is a related adviser The firm manages separate client focused portfolios for its clients. The firm primarily invests in common and preferred stocks, warrants and convertible securities, government and corporate fxed-income securities, commodities, currencies, real estate-related assets and infation-protected securities.