Norges Bank Acquires Shares of 224,867 WD-40 (NASDAQ:WDFC)

Norges Bank bought a new position in WD-40 (NASDAQ:WDFC) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor bought 224,867 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock, valued at approximately $54,571,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in WD-40 by 1.0% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 1,627,684 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $395,006,000 after purchasing an additional 16,763 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of WD-40 by 1.8% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 523,154 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $134,911,000 after buying an additional 9,418 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of WD-40 by 3.5% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 378,115 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $97,524,000 after buying an additional 12,943 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of WD-40 by 3.5% in the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 150,557 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $36,537,000 after acquiring an additional 5,095 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its position in WD-40 by 1.5% during the 4th quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 129,894 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $31,523,000 after acquiring an additional 1,932 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.52% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, DA Davidson restated a “buy” rating and issued a $322.00 price objective on shares of WD-40 in a report on Monday, January 27th.

WD-40 Trading Up 0.4 %

WD-40 stock opened at $248.93 on Friday. WD-40 has a 12 month low of $211.03 and a 12 month high of $292.36. The company has a market capitalization of $3.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 47.69 and a beta of -0.10. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $237.65 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $251.90. The company has a current ratio of 2.44, a quick ratio of 1.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37.

WD-40 (NASDAQ:WDFC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, January 10th. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.39 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.29 by $0.10. The company had revenue of $153.30 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $147.40 million. WD-40 had a net margin of 11.78% and a return on equity of 31.68%. WD-40’s revenue was up 9.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.28 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that WD-40 will post 5.42 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

WD-40 Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 30th. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 18th will be issued a dividend of $0.94 per share. This represents a $3.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.51%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 17th. WD-40’s payout ratio is 72.03%.

WD-40 Profile

WD-40 Company develops and sells maintenance products, and homecare and cleaning products in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. The company provides multi-purpose maintenance products that include aerosol sprays, non-aerosol trigger sprays, precision pens, and in liquid-bulk form products under the WD-40 Multi-Use brand name; specialty maintenance products, such as penetrants, degreasers, corrosion inhibitors, greases, lubricants, and rust removers under the WD-40 Specialist brand; and bike-specific products.