Jefferies Financial Group Raises Genuine Parts (NYSE:GPC) Price Target to $170.00

Genuine Parts (NYSE:GPC) had its target price boosted by Jefferies Financial Group from $150.00 to $170.00 in a research report released on Friday morning, Benzinga reports. Jefferies Financial Group currently has a hold rating on the specialty retailer’s stock.

GPC has been the subject of a number of other reports. Evercore ISI cut their target price on shares of Genuine Parts from $160.00 to $155.00 and set an in-line rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 16th. StockNews.com raised shares of Genuine Parts from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Friday, April 5th. Truist Financial lifted their price objective on shares of Genuine Parts from $167.00 to $183.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, Wedbush reaffirmed a neutral rating and set a $170.00 price objective (up from $140.00) on shares of Genuine Parts in a research note on Friday. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $173.10.

Genuine Parts Trading Up 0.4 %

GPC stock opened at $163.09 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $150.66 and a 200 day moving average price of $142.49. Genuine Parts has a fifty-two week low of $126.35 and a fifty-two week high of $174.91. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.69, a quick ratio of 0.59 and a current ratio of 1.14. The firm has a market cap of $22.72 billion, a PE ratio of 18.18 and a beta of 0.94.

Genuine Parts (NYSE:GPC) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, April 18th. The specialty retailer reported $2.22 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.15 by $0.07. Genuine Parts had a net margin of 5.46% and a return on equity of 30.92%. The firm had revenue of $5.78 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.84 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.14 earnings per share. Genuine Parts’s revenue for the quarter was up .3% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Genuine Parts will post 9.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Genuine Parts Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 1st were paid a dividend of $1.00 per share. This is a positive change from Genuine Parts’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.95. This represents a $4.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.45%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 29th. Genuine Parts’s payout ratio is currently 44.59%.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Wendy B. Needham sold 3,250 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.92, for a total transaction of $503,490.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 14,397 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,230,383.24. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.37% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Genuine Parts

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Genuine Parts in the fourth quarter valued at about $215,643,000. Invesco Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of Genuine Parts by 71.1% in the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,590,036 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock valued at $373,949,000 after acquiring an additional 1,076,361 shares in the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Genuine Parts by 15,175.4% in the fourth quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 713,056 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock valued at $98,758,000 after acquiring an additional 708,388 shares in the last quarter. Stifel Financial Corp raised its holdings in shares of Genuine Parts by 27.0% in the fourth quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 2,029,388 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock valued at $281,078,000 after acquiring an additional 431,623 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Genuine Parts by 17.1% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 2,521,786 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock valued at $345,130,000 after acquiring an additional 367,665 shares in the last quarter. 78.83% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Genuine Parts Company Profile

Genuine Parts Company distributes automotive replacement parts, and industrial parts and materials. It operates in two segments: Automotive Parts Group and Industrial Parts Group segments. The company distributes automotive replacement parts for hybrid and electric vehicles, trucks, SUVs, buses, motorcycles, recreational vehicles, farm vehicles, small engines, farm equipment, marine equipment, and heavy duty equipment; and equipment and parts used by repair shops, service stations, fleet operators, automobile and truck dealers, leasing companies, bus and truck lines, mass merchandisers, farms, and individuals.