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

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a research note published on Tuesday.

AYI has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Oppenheimer boosted their price target on Acuity Brands from $315.00 to $370.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Acuity Brands from $289.00 to $305.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. Robert W. Baird raised their price target on Acuity Brands from $280.00 to $318.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $266.00 to $303.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Acuity Brands presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $324.00.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Shares of AYI stock opened at $303.00 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $9.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.54, a PEG ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 1.39. Acuity Brands has a fifty-two week low of $200.27 and a fifty-two week high of $337.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a quick ratio of 2.16 and a current ratio of 2.72. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $315.36 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $276.50.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 1st. The electronics maker reported $4.30 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.90 by $0.40. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.00% and a return on equity of 20.49%. The business had revenue of $1.03 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.02 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $3.74 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Acuity Brands will post 15.51 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of Acuity Brands stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $305.00, for a total transaction of $1,561,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 8,438 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,573,590. This trade represents a 37.76 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 2.80% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Acuity Brands

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $266,865,000 after buying an additional 12,479 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. boosted its holdings in Acuity Brands by 2.5% in the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 835,521 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $201,728,000 after acquiring an additional 20,537 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 3.4% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 629,893 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $152,085,000 after acquiring an additional 20,832 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 5.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $172,654,000 after acquiring an additional 34,032 shares in the last quarter. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 16.7% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 442,007 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $106,201,000 after purchasing an additional 63,159 shares during the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is currently 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.