AZZ (NYSE:AZZ) Shares Gap Down to $82.43

AZZ Inc. (NYSE:AZZ)’s share price gapped down prior to trading on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $82.43, but opened at $77.17. AZZ shares last traded at $75.71, with a volume of 109,366 shares.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

AZZ has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Noble Financial downgraded AZZ from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and set a $75.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. B. Riley increased their price objective on AZZ from $67.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, StockNews.com raised AZZ from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday.

AZZ Stock Performance

The company has a current ratio of 1.89, a quick ratio of 1.33 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.36. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $75.28 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $61.61. The company has a market capitalization of $1.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.83, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.22 and a beta of 1.28.

AZZ (NYSE:AZZ) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Monday, April 22nd. The industrial products company reported $0.93 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.70 by $0.23. The business had revenue of $366.50 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $351.67 million. AZZ had a return on equity of 15.66% and a net margin of 6.61%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 8.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.30 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that AZZ Inc. will post 4.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AZZ Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 2nd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, April 17th will be issued a dividend of $0.17 per share. This represents a $0.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.95%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, April 16th. AZZ’s dividend payout ratio is 19.83%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its holdings in shares of AZZ by 30.4% during the 1st quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 28,721 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $2,220,000 after acquiring an additional 6,703 shares during the last quarter. Claro Advisors LLC bought a new stake in AZZ during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $237,000. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in AZZ during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $215,000. Financial Synergies Wealth Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in AZZ during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Finally, Intrinsic Edge Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in AZZ during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $1,162,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 90.93% of the company’s stock.

AZZ Company Profile

AZZ Inc provides hot-dip galvanizing and coil coating solutions in the United States, Canada, Brazil, China, the Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, and India. The company operates through AZZ Metal Coatings and AZZ Precoat Metals segments. The AZZ Metal Coatings segment offers metal finishing solutions for corrosion protection, including hot-dip galvanizing, spin galvanizing, powder coating, anodizing, and plating to steel fabrication and other industries.