Advantage Solutions (NASDAQ:ADV) Shares Gap Up to $4.28

Advantage Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ:ADV) gapped up before the market opened on Wednesday . The stock had previously closed at $4.28, but opened at $4.43. Advantage Solutions shares last traded at $4.34, with a volume of 23,115 shares traded.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, TheStreet upgraded shares of Advantage Solutions from a “d” rating to a “c-” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 29th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $3.43.

Advantage Solutions Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $1.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -21.45 and a beta of 1.59. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $4.02 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $3.38. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.68, a quick ratio of 1.87 and a current ratio of 1.87.

Advantage Solutions (NASDAQ:ADV) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 29th. The company reported $0.06 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.14 by ($0.08). The company had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.14 billion. Advantage Solutions had a negative net margin of 1.35% and a negative return on equity of 4.51%. Equities research analysts anticipate that Advantage Solutions Inc. will post 0.47 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Advantage Solutions

In other Advantage Solutions news, COO Jack Anthony Pestello bought 10,000 shares of Advantage Solutions stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 11th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $3.87 per share, for a total transaction of $38,700.00. Following the acquisition, the chief operating officer now owns 146,279 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $566,099.73. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 5.50% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Advantage Solutions

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Quadrature Capital Ltd purchased a new stake in Advantage Solutions during the 4th quarter worth $55,000. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Advantage Solutions by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 8,272,593 shares of the company’s stock worth $29,947,000 after buying an additional 44,116 shares during the period. Barclays PLC increased its stake in Advantage Solutions by 219.8% during the 4th quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 138,373 shares of the company’s stock worth $501,000 after buying an additional 95,111 shares during the period. Vident Advisory LLC purchased a new stake in Advantage Solutions during the 4th quarter worth $453,000. Finally, Nuveen Asset Management LLC increased its stake in Advantage Solutions by 10.4% during the 4th quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 469,797 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,683,000 after buying an additional 44,112 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 49.82% of the company’s stock.

About Advantage Solutions

Advantage Solutions Inc provides business solutions to consumer goods manufacturers and retailers in North America and internationally. It operates in two segments, Sales and Marketing. The Sales segment offers brand-centric services, such as headquarter relationship management; analytics, insights, and intelligence; and brand-centric merchandising services.