Pentair (NYSE:PNR) Raised to Buy at StockNews.com

Pentair (NYSE:PNR) was upgraded by equities researchers at StockNews.com from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report released on Tuesday.

PNR has been the subject of a number of other reports. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $115.00 price objective on shares of Pentair in a research note on Thursday, November 21st. Northcoast Research raised Pentair from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Wolfe Research started coverage on Pentair in a research note on Tuesday, November 26th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $125.00 price objective for the company. Barclays lifted their target price on Pentair from $108.00 to $120.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 5th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price target on Pentair from $126.00 to $125.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 24th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $112.93.

Pentair Stock Performance

Shares of PNR opened at $85.57 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.10 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.88, a PEG ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46, a current ratio of 1.60 and a quick ratio of 0.92. Pentair has a one year low of $72.63 and a one year high of $110.71. The business has a fifty day moving average of $97.73 and a 200 day moving average of $98.74.

Pentair (NYSE:PNR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The industrial products company reported $1.08 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.02 by $0.06. Pentair had a net margin of 15.32% and a return on equity of 20.94%. The firm had revenue of $972.90 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $970.95 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.87 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Pentair will post 4.77 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of PNR. Northern Trust Corp raised its stake in Pentair by 27.9% in the 4th quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 1,962,263 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $197,482,000 after acquiring an additional 428,184 shares during the last quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas raised its stake in shares of Pentair by 219.0% in the fourth quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 604,758 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $60,863,000 after purchasing an additional 415,163 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its stake in shares of Pentair by 7.0% in the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 6,101,253 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $614,030,000 after purchasing an additional 396,581 shares during the last quarter. National Bank of Canada FI lifted its holdings in shares of Pentair by 862.2% during the third quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 441,887 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $43,212,000 after purchasing an additional 395,962 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Pentair in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $36,568,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.37% of the company’s stock.

About Pentair

Pentair plc provides various water solutions in the United States, Western Europe, China, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, Canada, and Japan. The company operates through three segments: Flow, Water Solutions, and Pool. The Flow segment designs, manufactures, and sells fluid treatment and pump products and systems, including pressure vessels, gas recovery solutions, membrane bioreactors, wastewater reuse systems and advanced membrane filtration, separation systems, water disposal pumps, water supply pumps, fluid transfer pumps, turbine pumps, solid handling pumps, and agricultural spray nozzles for fluid delivery, ion exchange, desalination, food and beverage, separation technologies in the oil and gas industry, residential and municipal wells, water treatment, wastewater solids handling, pressure boosting, circulation and transfer, fire suppression, flood control, agricultural irrigation, and crop spray in residential, commercial, and industrial markets.