994 Shares in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Purchased by Cooper Financial Group

Cooper Financial Group acquired a new stake in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm acquired 994 shares of the electronics maker’s stock, valued at approximately $290,000.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp increased its position 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 valued at $266,865,000 after purchasing an additional 12,479 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 3.4% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 629,893 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $152,085,000 after acquiring an additional 20,832 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Acuity Brands by 5.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 626,810 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $172,654,000 after acquiring an additional 34,032 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Acuity Brands by 16.7% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 442,007 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $106,201,000 after purchasing an additional 63,159 shares during the period. Finally, Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in Acuity Brands by 7.5% during the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 437,745 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $120,551,000 after purchasing an additional 30,581 shares during the last quarter. 98.21% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Acuity Brands news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $305.00, for a total transaction of $1,561,600.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 8,438 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,573,590. This trade represents a 37.76 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 2.80% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

AYI has been the subject of several analyst reports. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday. StockNews.com cut Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 10th. William Blair upgraded Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on Acuity Brands from $266.00 to $303.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Finally, Robert W. Baird upped their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $280.00 to $318.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Price Performance

AYI opened at $321.60 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $9.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.93, a PEG ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 1.40. The company has a current ratio of 2.72, a quick ratio of 2.16 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a 12-month low of $217.64 and a 12-month high of $337.99. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $315.37 and its 200-day simple moving average is $282.19.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.00% and a return on equity of 20.49%. The business had revenue of $951.60 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $955.60 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $3.72 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.51 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.