Analysts Set Warner Music Group Corp. (NASDAQ:WMG) Target Price at $34.82

Warner Music Group Corp. (NASDAQ:WMG) has been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty ratings firms that are covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1-year target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $35.2353.

A number of research analysts recently commented on the company. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Warner Music Group in a research report on Wednesday. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price objective on Warner Music Group from $28.00 to $31.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 12th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their price objective on Warner Music Group from $32.00 to $34.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 3rd. Citigroup raised their price objective on Warner Music Group from $33.00 to $41.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 9th. Finally, Barclays raised their price objective on Warner Music Group from $28.00 to $30.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 9th.

Institutional Trading of Warner Music Group

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Warner Music Group by 2.9% during the first quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 326,449 shares of the company’s stock valued at $10,234,000 after purchasing an additional 9,103 shares in the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its stake in shares of Warner Music Group by 5,272.3% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 95,304 shares of the company’s stock valued at $3,040,000 after purchasing an additional 93,530 shares in the last quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC boosted its stake in shares of Warner Music Group by 88.0% during the first quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 59,437 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,863,000 after purchasing an additional 27,821 shares in the last quarter. FORA Capital LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Warner Music Group during the first quarter valued at about $1,157,000. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Warner Music Group by 10.1% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 14,379,667 shares of the company’s stock valued at $450,803,000 after purchasing an additional 1,316,979 shares in the last quarter. 96.88% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Warner Music Group Stock Down 0.2%

Shares of NASDAQ WMG opened at $32.65 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.37, a quick ratio of 0.64 and a current ratio of 0.66. Warner Music Group has a 52 week low of $25.56 and a 52 week high of $36.64. The stock has a market capitalization of $17.02 billion, a P/E ratio of 57.28, a PEG ratio of 1.02 and a beta of 1.32. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $32.78 and its 200 day moving average is $30.12.

Warner Music Group (NASDAQ:WMG) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 7th. The company reported ($0.03) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.27 by ($0.30). Warner Music Group had a return on equity of 39.95% and a net margin of 4.59%.The company had revenue of $1.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.59 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.27 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 8.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that Warner Music Group will post 1.39 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Warner Music Group Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, September 3rd. Investors of record on Wednesday, August 20th were paid a $0.19 dividend. This represents a $0.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.3%. This is a boost from Warner Music Group’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.18. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, August 20th. Warner Music Group’s payout ratio is 133.33%.

Warner Music Group Company Profile

Warner Music Group Corp. operates as a music entertainment company in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and internationally. It operates through Recorded Music and Music Publishing segments. The Recorded Music segment is involved in the discovery and development of recording artists, as well as related marketing, promotion, distribution, sale, and licensing of music created by such recording artists; markets its music catalog through compilations and reissuances of previously released music and video titles, as well as previously unreleased materials; and conducts its operation primarily through a collection of record labels, such as Warner Records and Atlantic Records, as well as Asylum, Big Beat, Canvasback, East West, Erato, FFRR, Fueled by Ramen, Nonesuch, Parlophone, Reprise, Roadrunner, Sire, Spinnin’ Records, Warner Classics, and Warner Music Nashville.