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

StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note released on Saturday.

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

Acuity Brands Price Performance

Shares of NYSE AYI opened at $284.51 on Friday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $316.45 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $301.44. Acuity Brands has a fifty-two week low of $217.64 and a fifty-two week high of $345.30. The company has a market capitalization of $8.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.95, a P/E/G ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.40. 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 (NYSE:AYI) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The company had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $3.72 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 3rd were paid a $0.17 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 3rd. This is a positive change 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 0.24%. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is currently 5.01%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in AYI. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas bought a new position in shares of Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter valued at $3,849,000. Hancock Whitney Corp increased its position in Acuity Brands by 42.0% during the third quarter. Hancock Whitney Corp now owns 6,477 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $1,784,000 after acquiring an additional 1,917 shares during the last quarter. Aigen Investment Management LP bought a new position in Acuity Brands in the third quarter valued at about $484,000. Landscape Capital Management L.L.C. purchased a new position in Acuity Brands in the third quarter worth about $813,000. Finally, Entropy Technologies LP bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter valued at about $462,000. Institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

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.