Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Shares Down 6.5% – What’s Next?

Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)’s stock price traded down 6.5% on Monday . The company traded as low as $302.70 and last traded at $310.50. 113,456 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 67% from the average session volume of 346,702 shares. The stock had previously closed at $332.22.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have commented on AYI shares. Oppenheimer increased their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley upgraded Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Acuity Brands has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Trading Up 2.1 %

The company has a quick ratio of 2.38, a current ratio of 2.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $316.68 and its two-hundred day moving average is $290.95. The firm has a market cap of $10.02 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.84, a PEG ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 1.40.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The company had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $3.72 earnings per share. Acuity Brands’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts predict that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.76 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.17 per share. This is a boost from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date is Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.21%. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is presently 4.42%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 1.5% during the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 188,670 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $55,116,000 after buying an additional 2,795 shares during the last quarter. SVB Wealth LLC bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter worth approximately $707,000. Illumine Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $784,000. QRG Capital Management Inc. lifted its position in Acuity Brands by 6.6% during the fourth quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 8,508 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $2,485,000 after purchasing an additional 524 shares during the period. Finally, Versor Investments LP purchased a new stake in Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter worth approximately $474,000. 98.21% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.