StockNews.com Upgrades Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) to Strong-Buy

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) was upgraded by StockNews.com from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report issued on Wednesday.

Other analysts have also recently issued research reports about the stock. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Oppenheimer upped their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Acuity Brands currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

NYSE AYI opened at $329.96 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38. The firm has a market capitalization of $10.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.30, a P/E/G ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 1.40. The company’s fifty day moving average is $317.10 and its two-hundred day moving average is $295.77. Acuity Brands has a 52-week low of $217.64 and a 52-week high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $3.72 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 EPS for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Acuity Brands

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,104,542 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $906,930,000 after buying an additional 16,407 shares in the last quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.8% during the fourth quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,120,979 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $327,471,000 after purchasing an additional 8,705 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 10.2% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,117,489 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $326,452,000 after purchasing an additional 103,162 shares in the last quarter. Durable Capital Partners LP lifted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 158.9% during the fourth quarter. Durable Capital Partners LP now owns 1,088,477 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $317,977,000 after purchasing an additional 668,048 shares in the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 1.3% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $266,865,000 after purchasing an additional 12,479 shares in 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.