Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC Acquires 4,030 Shares of The Eastern Company (NASDAQ:EML)

Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC boosted its holdings in shares of The Eastern Company (NASDAQ:EML) by 7.8% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 55,395 shares of the industrial products company’s stock after purchasing an additional 4,030 shares during the quarter. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC’s holdings in Eastern were worth $1,470,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in EML. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Eastern by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 127,108 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $4,126,000 after purchasing an additional 449 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its position in Eastern by 8.3% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 68,301 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $2,216,000 after buying an additional 5,225 shares in the last quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC bought a new position in Eastern during the third quarter valued at about $231,000. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. raised its holdings in Eastern by 19.1% in the 4th quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 16,099 shares of the industrial products company’s stock valued at $427,000 after acquiring an additional 2,577 shares in the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its position in shares of Eastern by 226.4% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 7,247 shares of the industrial products company’s stock worth $235,000 after acquiring an additional 5,027 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 76.99% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Separately, StockNews.com cut Eastern from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 19th.

Eastern Trading Down 2.5 %

Shares of EML stock opened at $26.05 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $27.31 and a 200-day moving average of $28.82. The stock has a market cap of $159.58 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -25.29 and a beta of 0.97. The Eastern Company has a 52-week low of $23.15 and a 52-week high of $35.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a quick ratio of 1.42 and a current ratio of 2.64.

Eastern (NASDAQ:EML) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, March 11th. The industrial products company reported $0.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $66.70 million during the quarter. Eastern had a negative net margin of 2.26% and a positive return on equity of 10.44%.

Eastern Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 14th were paid a dividend of $0.11 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 14th. This represents a $0.44 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.69%. Eastern’s dividend payout ratio is currently -33.08%.

Eastern Profile

The Eastern Company designs, manufactures, and sells engineered solutions to industrial markets in the United States and internationally. The company offers turnkey returnable packaging solutions, which are used in the assembly processes of vehicles, aircraft, and durable goods, as well as in production processes of plastic packaging products, packaged consumer goods, and pharmaceuticals; designs and manufactures blow mold tools and injection blow mold tooling products, and 2-step stretch blow molds and related components for the stretch blow molding industry; and supplies blow molds and change parts to the food, beverage, healthcare, and chemical industries.