Wells Fargo & Company Lowers Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Price Target to $290.00

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) had its price target reduced by research analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from $336.00 to $290.00 in a report released on Friday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The brokerage presently has an “equal weight” rating on the electronics maker’s stock. Wells Fargo & Company‘s price objective points to a potential upside of 11.46% from the stock’s previous close.

Other equities research analysts have also issued reports about the stock. Robert W. Baird lowered their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $340.00 to $310.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, March 27th. StockNews.com downgraded Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, March 1st. William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $330.60.

Acuity Brands Trading Down 2.3 %

Shares of NYSE:AYI traded down $6.22 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $260.18. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 568,703 shares, compared to its average volume of 279,858. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.16, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $297.70 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $304.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98. Acuity Brands has a fifty-two week low of $217.64 and a fifty-two week high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.73 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.67 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $1.01 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.03 billion. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. Acuity Brands’s revenue was up 11.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $3.38 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Acuity Brands

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC grew its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 192.8% in the 4th quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 5,615 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $1,640,000 after buying an additional 3,697 shares during the last quarter. NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC increased its stake in Acuity Brands by 1.7% during the 4th quarter. NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC now owns 7,245 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $2,116,000 after purchasing an additional 121 shares in the last quarter. Lansforsakringar Fondforvaltning AB publ acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $8,601,000. Menard Financial Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at $79,000. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group Inc. raised its stake in Acuity Brands by 63.0% in the 4th quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,221 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $357,000 after acquiring an additional 472 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

About Acuity Brands

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.