AJ Bell (LON:AJB) Stock Price Down 1.2% – Time to Sell?

AJ Bell plc (LON:AJB)’s stock price traded down 1.2% during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as low as GBX 420.50 ($5.24) and last traded at GBX 442.50 ($5.51). 1,641,711 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 39% from the average session volume of 2,676,921 shares. The stock had previously closed at GBX 448 ($5.58).

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have recently commented on the company. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a GBX 565 ($7.03) target price on shares of AJ Bell in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Shore Capital reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of AJ Bell in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Citigroup downgraded AJ Bell to a “sell” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from GBX 450 ($5.60) to GBX 390 ($4.86) in a research report on Tuesday, January 7th.

AJ Bell Stock Down 1.2 %

The stock has a market cap of £1.82 billion, a PE ratio of 2,212.50, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.73 and a beta of 0.99. The business has a fifty day moving average of GBX 455.44 and a 200-day moving average of GBX 448.67. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 6.44, a current ratio of 3.75 and a quick ratio of 7.16.

AJ Bell (LON:AJB) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 5th. The company reported GBX 20.46 ($0.25) earnings per share for the quarter. AJ Bell had a net margin of 33.20% and a return on equity of 49.62%. Equities research analysts anticipate that AJ Bell plc will post 23.8118812 earnings per share for the current year.

AJ Bell Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 7th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 9th will be paid a GBX 8.25 ($0.10) dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 9th. This is a boost from AJ Bell’s previous dividend of $4.25. This represents a yield of 1.66%. AJ Bell’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 6,000.00%.

Insider Activity

In other AJ Bell news, insider Peter Birch sold 25,853 shares of AJ Bell stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of GBX 459 ($5.71), for a total transaction of £118,665.27 ($147,740.63). Corporate insiders own 29.60% of the company’s stock.

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.