Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Stock Rating Lowered by StockNews.com

StockNews.com cut shares of Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report released on Friday morning.

AYI has been the topic of several other reports. Morgan Stanley raised 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. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. Robert W. Baird dropped their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $310.00 to $295.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday. Oppenheimer boosted their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company cut their price objective on Acuity Brands from $290.00 to $275.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $324.60.

Acuity Brands Stock Down 9.4 %

Shares of NYSE AYI opened at $233.15 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.22 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.17, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.41. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $294.09 and its 200 day moving average is $303.75. Acuity Brands has a 52 week low of $217.64 and a 52 week high of $345.30. 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 issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 3rd. The electronics maker reported $3.73 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.67 by $0.06. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The company had revenue of $1.01 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.03 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.38 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Acuity Brands Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Investors of record on Friday, April 18th will be issued a $0.17 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 17th. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.29%. Acuity Brands’s payout ratio is 5.01%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of AYI. ORG Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth $29,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter valued at about $29,000. Westside Investment Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands during the 3rd quarter valued at about $33,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. acquired a new stake in Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter worth approximately $40,000. Finally, True Wealth Design LLC bought a new stake in Acuity Brands in the fourth quarter worth approximately $42,000. 98.21% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.