Ritholtz Wealth Management Raises Holdings in Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Ritholtz Wealth Management increased its position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) by 12.1% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 5,410 shares of the electronics maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 586 shares during the quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management’s holdings in Acuity Brands were worth $1,581,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. State Street Corp boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 1.3% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 969,043 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $266,865,000 after acquiring an additional 12,479 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 3.4% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 629,893 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $152,085,000 after acquiring an additional 20,832 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 5.7% during the third 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 position in Acuity Brands by 16.7% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 442,007 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $106,201,000 after acquiring an additional 63,159 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its position in Acuity Brands by 7.5% during the third quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 437,745 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $120,551,000 after acquiring an additional 30,581 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Acuity Brands news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $305.00, for a total value of $1,561,600.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 8,438 shares in the company, valued at $2,573,590. The trade was a 37.76 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 2.80% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Acuity Brands Stock Down 0.0 %

Shares of Acuity Brands stock opened at $330.70 on Friday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $315.63 and a 200 day moving average price of $283.73. The company has a current ratio of 2.98, a quick ratio of 2.16 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. Acuity Brands, Inc. has a twelve month low of $217.64 and a twelve month high of $337.99. The stock has a market cap of $10.24 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 1.40.

Acuity Brands (NYSE:AYI) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.87 by $0.10. Acuity Brands had a net margin of 11.11% and a return on equity of 19.98%. The firm had revenue of $951.60 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $955.60 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $3.72 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Robert W. Baird raised their target price on shares of Acuity Brands from $280.00 to $318.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. William Blair raised shares of Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 2nd. Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $341.40.

Acuity Brands 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.