Oak Thistle LLC Buys Shares of 1,768 Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI)

Oak Thistle LLC purchased a new position in shares of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund purchased 1,768 shares of the electronics maker’s stock, valued at approximately $516,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Miracle Mile Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Acuity Brands during the 4th quarter valued at about $202,000. Cooper Financial Group acquired a new position in shares of Acuity Brands during the fourth quarter valued at about $290,000. Matrix Trust Co raised its position in shares of Acuity Brands by 479.2% in the 4th quarter. Matrix Trust Co now owns 307 shares of the electronics maker’s stock valued at $90,000 after purchasing an additional 254 shares during the last quarter. ORG Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new stake in Acuity Brands in the 4th quarter worth approximately $29,000. Finally, Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC grew its position in Acuity Brands by 10.0% during the 4th quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 2,110 shares of the electronics maker’s stock worth $581,000 after purchasing an additional 192 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.21% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Oppenheimer raised their price target on shares of Acuity Brands from $370.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 9th. Morgan Stanley raised Acuity Brands from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $304.00 to $370.00 in a report on Tuesday. William Blair raised Acuity Brands from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, January 2nd. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Acuity Brands from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 10th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on shares of Acuity Brands from $320.00 to $336.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 9th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $341.40.

Acuity Brands Stock Up 1.6 %

Shares of AYI stock opened at $331.40 on Friday. 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 $10.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.40, a P/E/G ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 1.40. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $315.48 and a 200 day moving average of $282.49. 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 (NYSE:AYI) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 8th. The electronics maker reported $3.97 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 analyst estimates of $955.60 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $3.72 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Acuity Brands, Inc. will post 15.7 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, SVP Barry R. Goldman sold 5,120 shares of Acuity Brands stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $305.00, for a total value of $1,561,600.00. Following the completion of 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 document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Insiders own 2.80% of the company’s stock.

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.