Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Upgraded 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 issued to investors on Wednesday.

Several other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on AYI. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

AYI opened at $309.11 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The business’s 50 day moving average is $317.32 and its 200-day moving average is $296.85. The stock has a market cap of $9.57 billion, a PE ratio of 22.76, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 1.40. Acuity Brands has a twelve month low of $217.64 and a twelve month high of $345.30.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The firm had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.72 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts predict that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Investors of record on Monday, February 3rd were issued a $0.17 dividend. This is an increase from Acuity Brands’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.15. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.22%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is presently 5.01%.

Institutional Trading of Acuity Brands

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in AYI. ORG Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter valued at $29,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the third quarter valued at $33,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter valued at $40,000. Finally, True Wealth Design LLC purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth about $42,000. 98.21% of the stock is currently owned by 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.