Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Downgraded by StockNews.com to “Buy”

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) was downgraded by investment analysts at StockNews.com from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued on Tuesday.

Other equities analysts also recently issued reports about the company. Morgan Stanley raised Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their target price for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Oppenheimer upped their target price on Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 9th. Finally, William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Acuity Brands has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 1.1 %

Acuity Brands stock traded up $3.45 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $323.56. 233,738 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 335,731. Acuity Brands has a 12-month low of $217.64 and a 12-month high of $345.30. The business has a fifty day moving average of $316.93 and a 200 day moving average of $292.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 2.38 and a current ratio of 2.98. The firm has a market cap of $10.02 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.83, a PEG ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 1.40.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a return on equity of 19.98% and a net margin of 11.11%. The firm had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $955.60 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $3.72 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Acuity Brands

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of AYI. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,104,542 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $906,930,000 after purchasing an additional 16,407 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $266,865,000 after purchasing an additional 12,479 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 5.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $172,654,000 after purchasing an additional 34,032 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 7.5% during the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 437,745 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $120,551,000 after purchasing an additional 30,581 shares during the period. Finally, Seizert Capital Partners LLC grew its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. Seizert Capital Partners LLC now owns 281,308 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $77,469,000 after purchasing an additional 5,435 shares during the period. 98.21% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Acuity Brands Company Profile

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.