John Wiley & Sons (NYSE:WLY) Shares Gap Down – Should You Sell?

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (NYSE:WLY) shares gapped down before the market opened on Tuesday . The stock had previously closed at $43.33, but opened at $40.00. John Wiley & Sons shares last traded at $40.9350, with a volume of 92,617 shares trading hands.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently issued reports on WLY. Zacks Research cut John Wiley & Sons from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, May 15th. Weiss Ratings raised John Wiley & Sons from a “hold (c)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating, Based on data from MarketBeat, John Wiley & Sons presently has a consensus rating of “Hold”.

John Wiley & Sons Trading Up 1.2%

The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $41.41 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $35.66. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.06, a current ratio of 0.59 and a quick ratio of 0.57. The company has a market capitalization of $2.25 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.29 and a beta of 0.80.

John Wiley & Sons (NYSE:WLY) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, June 16th. The company reported $1.67 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.65 by $0.02. John Wiley & Sons had a return on equity of 28.38% and a net margin of 9.24%.The company had revenue of $447.94 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $450.00 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.37 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 1.2% compared to the same quarter last year. John Wiley & Sons has set its FY 2027 guidance at 4.600-5.050 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that John Wiley & Sons, Inc. will post 4.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

John Wiley & Sons Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, April 7th were issued a dividend of $0.355 per share. This represents a $1.42 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.2%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, April 7th. John Wiley & Sons’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 49.48%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On John Wiley & Sons

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in John Wiley & Sons by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 4,840,470 shares of the company’s stock valued at $148,264,000 after buying an additional 25,174 shares in the last quarter. Clarkston Capital Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of John Wiley & Sons by 18.6% in the fourth quarter. Clarkston Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,617,945 shares of the company’s stock worth $80,188,000 after purchasing an additional 410,121 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of John Wiley & Sons by 14.3% in the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,829,676 shares of the company’s stock worth $69,711,000 after purchasing an additional 228,864 shares during the period. Schroder Investment Management Group increased its stake in shares of John Wiley & Sons by 14.9% in the fourth quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group now owns 1,807,857 shares of the company’s stock worth $55,375,000 after purchasing an additional 234,527 shares during the period. Finally, State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of John Wiley & Sons by 2.1% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,714,430 shares of the company’s stock worth $76,515,000 after purchasing an additional 34,782 shares during the period. 73.94% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About John Wiley & Sons

John Wiley & Sons, Inc is a global publishing and educational services company founded in 1807 and headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey. The company operates through two primary segments: Research & Publishing and Education. Through these segments, Wiley produces a wide range of scholarly journals, books, reference works and digital products for academic, scientific, technical and medical markets, as well as professional development and higher education learning resources.

In its Research & Publishing segment, Wiley publishes thousands of peer-reviewed journals and maintains the Wiley Online Library, a leading platform for scientific and scholarly content.