Eagle Asset Management Inc. Sells 53,567 Shares of AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVAV)

Eagle Asset Management Inc. decreased its position in shares of AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVAV) by 32.7% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 110,105 shares of the aerospace company’s stock after selling 53,567 shares during the period. Eagle Asset Management Inc. owned approximately 0.39% of AeroVironment worth $22,076,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of AVAV. Motley Fool Asset Management LLC bought a new position in AeroVironment during the first quarter valued at $266,000. State Board of Administration of Florida Retirement System grew its holdings in shares of AeroVironment by 10.5% in the first quarter. State Board of Administration of Florida Retirement System now owns 8,212 shares of the aerospace company’s stock worth $1,259,000 after purchasing an additional 780 shares during the last quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp grew its holdings in shares of AeroVironment by 7.4% in the first quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp now owns 1,920 shares of the aerospace company’s stock worth $294,000 after purchasing an additional 133 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of AeroVironment by 6.2% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,094,831 shares of the aerospace company’s stock worth $474,376,000 after purchasing an additional 179,395 shares during the last quarter. Finally, O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of AeroVironment in the first quarter worth about $258,000. Institutional investors own 86.38% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently commented on AVAV. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of AeroVironment from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $161.00 to $220.00 in a report on Wednesday, August 28th. BTIG Research restated a “buy” rating and issued a $245.00 price target on shares of AeroVironment in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded shares of AeroVironment from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and cut their price target for the stock from $240.00 to $230.00 in a report on Wednesday. Raymond James cut shares of AeroVironment from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Monday, September 16th. Finally, Baird R W upgraded shares of AeroVironment from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $211.83.

AeroVironment Stock Up 0.8 %

Shares of AeroVironment stock opened at $195.91 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $5.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 91.98 and a beta of 0.49. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $207.29 and its two-hundred day moving average is $193.97. AeroVironment, Inc. has a 1 year low of $116.51 and a 1 year high of $236.60. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a current ratio of 4.26 and a quick ratio of 3.04.

AeroVironment (NASDAQ:AVAV) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The aerospace company reported $0.89 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.61 by $0.28. The business had revenue of $189.48 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $183.18 million. AeroVironment had a net margin of 7.82% and a return on equity of 9.87%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 24.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.00 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that AeroVironment, Inc. will post 3.36 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at AeroVironment

In other AeroVironment news, CFO Kevin Patrick Mcdonnell sold 878 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $210.54, for a total transaction of $184,854.12. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 17,376 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,658,343.04. This represents a 4.81 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 1,782 shares of company stock valued at $372,615. 1.27% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

AeroVironment Profile

AeroVironment, Inc designs, develops, produces, delivers, and supports a portfolio of robotic systems and related services for government agencies and businesses in the United States and internationally. It operates through Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (SUAS), Tactical Missile System (TMS), Medium Unmanned Aircraft Systems (MUAS), and High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite Systems (HAPS) segments.