Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) Shares Acquired by Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc.

Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 0.6% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 1,403,088 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after acquiring an additional 8,332 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in Ecolab were worth $358,250,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ECL. Farther Finance Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Ecolab by 32.7% during the 3rd quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 2,356 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $602,000 after buying an additional 581 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. raised its position in shares of Ecolab by 15.9% during the 3rd quarter. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. now owns 6,224 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,589,000 after purchasing an additional 855 shares during the period. Cetera Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Ecolab by 84.3% during the 1st quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC now owns 13,415 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $3,098,000 after purchasing an additional 6,137 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its position in Ecolab by 50.9% during the 2nd quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 4,922 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,171,000 after purchasing an additional 1,660 shares during the period. Finally, Tidal Investments LLC boosted its position in Ecolab by 19.1% during the 1st quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 21,198 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $4,895,000 after purchasing an additional 3,393 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 74.91% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have issued reports on ECL. Barclays raised their target price on Ecolab from $260.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, November 18th. Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on shares of Ecolab from $271.00 to $279.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of Ecolab from $240.00 to $263.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. UBS Group lowered Ecolab from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $276.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Monday, November 4th. Finally, Citigroup raised Ecolab from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and cut their target price for the company from $267.00 to $265.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 31st. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $279.87.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Ecolab news, EVP Gregory B. Cook sold 3,811 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $249.33, for a total transaction of $950,196.63. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 8,080 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,014,586.40. The trade was a 32.05 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder William H. Gates III sold 409,136 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, October 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of $246.92, for a total value of $101,023,861.12. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 30,776,418 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,599,313,132.56. The trade was a 1.31 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 838,770 shares of company stock valued at $206,273,864. 0.04% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Ecolab Trading Up 0.8 %

Shares of NYSE:ECL opened at $245.30 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a current ratio of 1.30. The stock has a market capitalization of $69.46 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.40, a PEG ratio of 2.44 and a beta of 1.13. Ecolab Inc. has a 1-year low of $186.00 and a 1-year high of $262.61. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $251.75 and a 200 day moving average price of $244.29.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The basic materials company reported $1.83 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.82 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $4 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.03 billion. Ecolab had a return on equity of 22.12% and a net margin of 13.05%. The company’s revenue was up 1.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.54 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.65 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ecolab Company Profile

Ecolab Inc provides water, hygiene, and infection prevention solutions and services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Global Industrial; Global Institutional & Specialty; and Global Healthcare & Life Sciences. The Global Industrial segment offers water treatment and process applications, and cleaning and sanitizing solutions to manufacturing, food and beverage processing, transportation, chemical, metals and mining, power generation, pulp and paper, commercial laundry, petroleum, refining, and petrochemical industries.