Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. Boosts Holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 0.2% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 211,909 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after buying an additional 433 shares during the quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. owned 0.69% of Acuity Brands worth $58,358,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in AYI. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in Acuity Brands by 4.9% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 23,789 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $6,394,000 after purchasing an additional 1,108 shares in the last quarter. Atria Investments Inc acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $1,706,000. Cetera Investment Advisers boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 291.2% in the first quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 6,521 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,752,000 after buying an additional 4,854 shares in the last quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands in the first quarter valued at approximately $376,000. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC grew its holdings in Acuity Brands by 14.6% during the second quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 635 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $153,000 after acquiring an additional 81 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Acuity Brands

In related news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 owns 8,438 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,573,590. This represents a 37.76 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Insiders own 1.50% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have commented on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $266.00 to $303.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $289.00 to $305.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. StockNews.com raised Acuity Brands from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Oppenheimer upped their price target on Acuity Brands from $315.00 to $370.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, Robert W. Baird lifted their price objective on Acuity Brands from $280.00 to $318.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Acuity Brands has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $324.00.

Acuity Brands Trading Up 0.2 %

Shares of AYI opened at $320.69 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a current ratio of 2.72 and a quick ratio of 2.16. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 1-year low of $176.93 and a 1-year high of $337.99. The stock has a market cap of $9.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.86, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 1.40. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $307.42 and a 200-day simple moving average of $269.30.

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

Acuity Brands Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 18th were paid a dividend of $0.15 per share. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.19%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 18th. Acuity Brands’s dividend payout ratio is currently 4.46%.

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.