AJ Bell (LON:AJB) Stock Price Down 1.7% – Here’s What Happened

Shares of AJ Bell plc (LON:AJB) fell 1.7% during mid-day trading on Thursday . The stock traded as low as GBX 400 ($5.18) and last traded at GBX 413.50 ($5.35). 21,694,963 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 689% from the average session volume of 2,749,159 shares. The stock had previously closed at GBX 420.50 ($5.44).

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have commented on the company. Citigroup lowered AJ Bell to a “sell” rating and lowered their price objective for the stock from GBX 450 ($5.83) to GBX 390 ($5.05) in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a GBX 565 ($7.31) price target on shares of AJ Bell in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Shore Capital reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of AJ Bell in a research report on Friday, December 6th.

AJ Bell Stock Performance

The company has a current ratio of 3.63, a quick ratio of 7.16 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 6.46. The company has a market cap of £1.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.73 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a 50 day moving average price of GBX 431.03 and a 200-day moving average price of GBX 446.12.

AJ Bell Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 7th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 9th were paid a dividend of GBX 8.25 ($0.11) per share. This is an increase from AJ Bell’s previous dividend of $4.25. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, January 9th. This represents a yield of 1.66%. AJ Bell’s payout ratio is presently 61.37%.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Peter Birch acquired 557 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 5th. The shares were bought at an average price of GBX 413 ($5.35) per share, with a total value of £2,300.41 ($2,978.26). 29.60% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About AJ Bell

Established in 1995, AJ Bell is one of the largest investment platforms in the UK, operating at scale in both the advised and direct-to-consumer markets.

Our purpose is to help people invest by providing them with easy access to Pensions, ISAs and General investment accounts, great customer service and competitive charges.

Our two core platform propositions are AJ Bell in the D2C market and AJ Bell Investcentre in the advised market, which both provide access to a broad investment range including shares and other instruments traded on the major stock exchanges around the world, as well as all mainstream collective investments available in the UK and our own range of AJ Bell funds.