Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Downgraded by StockNews.com to “Buy”

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) was downgraded by analysts at StockNews.com from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report issued on Tuesday.

Several other equities analysts have also recently issued reports on AYI. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note 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 company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Oppenheimer raised their target price on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 1.1 %

Shares of AYI traded up $3.45 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $323.56. The company had a trading volume of 233,738 shares, compared to its average volume of 335,731. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $316.93 and its 200-day simple moving average is $292.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98. The firm has a market capitalization of $10.02 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.83, a P/E/G ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands has a 1 year low of $217.64 and a 1 year high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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. The business had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $3.72 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in AYI. UMB Bank n.a. increased its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 517.6% in the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 105 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 88 shares during the period. ORG Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the third quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Finally, V Square Quantitative Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the third quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.