Salem Investment Counselors Inc. Raises Holdings in Copart, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPRT)

Salem Investment Counselors Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Copart, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPRT) by 4.3% during the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 43,270 shares of the business services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,780 shares during the quarter. Salem Investment Counselors Inc.’s holdings in Copart were worth $2,506,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Kestra Advisory Services LLC boosted its stake in Copart by 166.9% in the third quarter. Kestra Advisory Services LLC now owns 36,416 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $1,569,000 after acquiring an additional 22,771 shares in the last quarter. Aigen Investment Management LP acquired a new stake in Copart in the third quarter valued at approximately $371,000. CI Investments Inc. boosted its stake in Copart by 95.4% in the third quarter. CI Investments Inc. now owns 2,468 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $106,000 after acquiring an additional 1,205 shares in the last quarter. Rathbones Group PLC boosted its stake in Copart by 100.0% in the third quarter. Rathbones Group PLC now owns 7,600 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $327,000 after acquiring an additional 3,800 shares in the last quarter. Finally, V Square Quantitative Management LLC boosted its stake in Copart by 3,205.7% in the third quarter. V Square Quantitative Management LLC now owns 4,628 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $199,000 after acquiring an additional 4,488 shares in the last quarter. 85.78% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Copart from $48.00 to $52.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, April 8th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $51.00.

Insider Activity at Copart

In related news, Chairman A Jayson Adair sold 600,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.77, for a total transaction of $34,662,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chairman now directly owns 19,687,980 shares in the company, valued at $1,137,374,604.60. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 10.23% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Copart Trading Up 0.4 %

NASDAQ:CPRT opened at $54.24 on Monday. Copart, Inc. has a 12 month low of $42.41 and a 12 month high of $58.58. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $54.18 and a 200-day simple moving average of $52.41. The company has a market capitalization of $52.20 billion, a P/E ratio of 38.20 and a beta of 1.26.

Copart (NASDAQ:CPRT) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 16th. The business services provider reported $0.39 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.38 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $1.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.11 billion. Copart had a net margin of 33.33% and a return on equity of 20.80%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.36 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that Copart, Inc. will post 1.43 EPS for the current year.

Copart Company Profile

Copart, Inc provides online auctions and vehicle remarketing services. It offers a range of services for processing and selling vehicles over the Internet through its Virtual Bidding Third Generation Internet auction-style sales technology on behalf of vehicle sellers, insurance companies, banks and finance companies, charities, and fleet operators and dealers, as well as individual owners.