Lear Co. (NYSE:LEA) Receives Consensus Rating of “Hold” from Brokerages

Lear Co. (NYSE:LEA) has earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the twelve analysts that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and five have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year target price among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $134.18.

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on LEA. The Goldman Sachs Group cut their price objective on shares of Lear from $144.00 to $135.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, October 1st. StockNews.com raised Lear from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Barclays lowered Lear from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $140.00 to $120.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Bank of America reduced their price target on shares of Lear from $180.00 to $170.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, October 14th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on shares of Lear from $162.00 to $160.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, October 21st.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of LEA. Pacer Advisors Inc. raised its stake in shares of Lear by 11,753.3% during the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,016,778 shares of the auto parts company’s stock worth $116,126,000 after purchasing an additional 1,008,200 shares during the period. Pzena Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Lear by 7.3% in the third quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC now owns 7,714,653 shares of the auto parts company’s stock valued at $842,054,000 after acquiring an additional 526,763 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its stake in Lear by 36.9% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,871,346 shares of the auto parts company’s stock valued at $213,726,000 after acquiring an additional 504,091 shares during the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. grew its position in shares of Lear by 115.4% during the 2nd quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. now owns 561,100 shares of the auto parts company’s stock valued at $64,083,000 after acquiring an additional 300,667 shares during the period. Finally, Diamond Hill Capital Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Lear by 9.5% in the 2nd quarter. Diamond Hill Capital Management Inc. now owns 2,754,752 shares of the auto parts company’s stock worth $314,620,000 after purchasing an additional 238,964 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 97.04% of the company’s stock.

Lear Trading Down 2.0 %

NYSE LEA opened at $93.02 on Friday. Lear has a one year low of $91.20 and a one year high of $147.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.57, a current ratio of 1.33 and a quick ratio of 1.03. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $96.51 and a 200 day simple moving average of $106.27. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.05 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.78, a P/E/G ratio of 0.58 and a beta of 1.43.

Lear (NYSE:LEA) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 24th. The auto parts company reported $2.89 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.57 by $0.32. The company had revenue of $5.58 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.52 billion. Lear had a net margin of 2.33% and a return on equity of 14.68%. Lear’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.87 EPS. Research analysts expect that Lear will post 12.01 earnings per share for the current year.

Lear Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 30th. Investors of record on Wednesday, December 11th were given a dividend of $0.77 per share. This represents a $3.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.31%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 11th. Lear’s payout ratio is 32.39%.

Lear Company Profile

Lear Corporation designs, develops, engineers, manufactures, assembles, and supplies automotive seating, and electrical distribution systems and related components for automotive original equipment manufacturers in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. Its Seating segment offers seat systems, seat subsystems, keyseat components, seat trim covers, seat mechanisms, seat foams, and headrests, as well as surface materials, such as leather and fabric for automobiles and light trucks, compact cars, pick-up trucks, and sport utility vehicles.