First Advantage Co. (NYSE:FA) Receives Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Shares of First Advantage Co. (NYSE:FA) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the seven brokerages that are covering the company, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and four have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price objective among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $77.25.

Several analysts recently issued reports on FA shares. Truist Financial cut their price target on shares of First Advantage from $250.00 to $249.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, July 22nd. Wolfe Research cut shares of First Advantage from an “outperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price objective on First Advantage from $19.00 to $21.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 25th.

First Advantage Price Performance

FA opened at $17.74 on Friday. First Advantage has a twelve month low of $12.46 and a twelve month high of $20.75. The company has a current ratio of 4.31, a quick ratio of 4.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61. The firm has a market cap of $2.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 110.88 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $19.31 and a 200 day simple moving average of $17.38.

First Advantage (NYSE:FA) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, August 8th. The company reported $0.21 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.21. First Advantage had a return on equity of 13.94% and a net margin of 3.24%. The business had revenue of $184.55 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $184.66 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.24 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down .4% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts expect that First Advantage will post 0.82 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On First Advantage

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Quarry LP boosted its holdings in shares of First Advantage by 49.7% during the second quarter. Quarry LP now owns 2,607 shares of the company’s stock valued at $42,000 after acquiring an additional 865 shares during the period. Marshall Wace LLP acquired a new position in First Advantage during the 2nd quarter valued at about $209,000. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. bought a new position in First Advantage in the 2nd quarter worth about $211,000. Truist Financial Corp acquired a new stake in shares of First Advantage in the second quarter valued at approximately $234,000. Finally, Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in shares of First Advantage by 16.2% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 15,478 shares of the company’s stock valued at $252,000 after buying an additional 2,163 shares during the last quarter. 94.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

First Advantage Company Profile

First Advantage Corporation provides employment background screening, identity, and verification solutions worldwide. It offers pre-onboarding products and solutions, such as criminal background checks, drug/health screening, extended workforce screening, FBI channeling, identity checks and biometric fraud mitigation tools, education/work history verification, driver records and compliance, healthcare credentials, executive screening, and other screening products.