Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) Rating Increased to Strong-Buy at StockNews.com

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

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

Acuity Brands Stock Performance

Shares of AYI stock opened at $320.77 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.98 and a quick ratio of 2.38. Acuity Brands has a one year low of $217.64 and a one year high of $345.30. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $317.36 and its 200 day simple moving average is $296.68. The stock has a market capitalization of $9.93 billion, a PE ratio of 23.62, a PEG ratio of 2.08 and a beta of 1.40.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.87 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. Acuity Brands’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $3.72 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Acuity Brands will post 15.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of AYI. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 0.5% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,104,542 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $906,930,000 after acquiring an additional 16,407 shares during the last quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. increased its holdings in Acuity Brands by 0.8% during the 4th quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. now owns 1,120,979 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $327,471,000 after purchasing an additional 8,705 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 10.2% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 1,117,489 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $326,452,000 after purchasing an additional 103,162 shares during the last quarter. Durable Capital Partners LP boosted its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 158.9% during the fourth quarter. Durable Capital Partners LP now owns 1,088,477 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $317,977,000 after buying an additional 668,048 shares during the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp grew its holdings in Acuity Brands by 1.3% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $266,865,000 after buying an additional 12,479 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

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.