New York State Common Retirement Fund Has $1.70 Million Stock Holdings in WD-40 (NASDAQ:WDFC)

New York State Common Retirement Fund lifted its position in shares of WD-40 (NASDAQ:WDFC) by 6.1% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 7,008 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock after purchasing an additional 400 shares during the quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund owned 0.05% of WD-40 worth $1,701,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Barclays PLC lifted its holdings in WD-40 by 309.7% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 37,094 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $9,566,000 after acquiring an additional 28,039 shares in the last quarter. DF Dent & Co. Inc. raised its position in shares of WD-40 by 27.3% during the third quarter. DF Dent & Co. Inc. now owns 66,993 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $17,276,000 after purchasing an additional 14,358 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp bought a new position in shares of WD-40 during the 4th quarter valued at about $3,217,000. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of WD-40 by 3.5% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 378,115 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $97,524,000 after purchasing an additional 12,943 shares in the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its position in shares of WD-40 by 24.8% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 53,950 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $13,913,000 after purchasing an additional 10,711 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.52% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, DA Davidson reissued a “buy” rating and set a $322.00 price objective on shares of WD-40 in a research report on Monday, January 27th.

WD-40 Trading Up 0.7 %

Shares of NASDAQ:WDFC opened at $238.62 on Monday. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.23 billion, a PE ratio of 45.71 and a beta of -0.05. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $235.90 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $254.34. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 2.44 and a quick ratio of 1.75. WD-40 has a one year low of $211.03 and a one year high of $292.36.

WD-40 (NASDAQ:WDFC) last released its earnings results on Friday, January 10th. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.39 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.29 by $0.10. WD-40 had a net margin of 11.78% and a return on equity of 31.68%. The business had revenue of $153.30 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $147.40 million. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.28 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 9.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts forecast that WD-40 will post 5.42 EPS for the current fiscal year.

WD-40 Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 31st. Investors of record on Friday, January 17th were issued a dividend of $0.94 per share. This is an increase from WD-40’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.88. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 17th. This represents a $3.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.58%. WD-40’s payout ratio is presently 72.03%.

WD-40 Company Profile

WD-40 Company develops and sells maintenance products, and homecare and cleaning products in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. The company provides multi-purpose maintenance products that include aerosol sprays, non-aerosol trigger sprays, precision pens, and in liquid-bulk form products under the WD-40 Multi-Use brand name; specialty maintenance products, such as penetrants, degreasers, corrosion inhibitors, greases, lubricants, and rust removers under the WD-40 Specialist brand; and bike-specific products.