Motorola Solutions (NYSE:MSI) Raised to “Strong-Buy” at Truist Financial

Motorola Solutions (NYSE:MSI) was upgraded by Truist Financial to a “strong-buy” rating in a report released on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

Other analysts have also issued research reports about the company. Northcoast Research raised Motorola Solutions from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $450.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Monday, December 1st. Argus upgraded Motorola Solutions to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 13th. Barclays boosted their target price on Motorola Solutions from $495.00 to $506.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 12th. Weiss Ratings upgraded Motorola Solutions from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Monday, March 2nd. Finally, Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $499.00 price target (up from $443.00) on shares of Motorola Solutions in a research report on Thursday, February 12th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have issued a Buy rating and one has given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Motorola Solutions currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $502.50.

Motorola Solutions Trading Up 1.6%

NYSE MSI opened at $433.78 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.47, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a current ratio of 1.04. The firm has a market cap of $71.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.00, a PEG ratio of 2.99 and a beta of 0.96. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $444.62 and a 200-day simple moving average of $420.61. Motorola Solutions has a one year low of $359.36 and a one year high of $492.22.

Motorola Solutions (NYSE:MSI) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 11th. The communications equipment provider reported $4.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.35 by $0.24. The firm had revenue of $3.38 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.34 billion. Motorola Solutions had a net margin of 18.44% and a return on equity of 110.75%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $4.04 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Motorola Solutions will post 13.55 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Kenneth D. Denman sold 434 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $470.12, for a total value of $204,032.08. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 7,153 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,362,768.36. This represents a 5.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Gregory Q. Brown sold 28,435 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $477.95, for a total transaction of $13,590,508.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 90,721 shares in the company, valued at $43,360,101.95. This represents a 23.86% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 129,069 shares of company stock worth $60,779,964 over the last 90 days. 1.44% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of MSI. Covea Finance increased its position in shares of Motorola Solutions by 5.9% during the third quarter. Covea Finance now owns 111,219 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $50,859,000 after purchasing an additional 6,153 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB boosted its position in shares of Motorola Solutions by 20.3% in the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 1,345,492 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $615,280,000 after purchasing an additional 227,062 shares during the period. Capital World Investors boosted its position in shares of Motorola Solutions by 5.5% in the 3rd quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 9,386,519 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $4,292,310,000 after purchasing an additional 490,354 shares during the period. Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Co grew its stake in Motorola Solutions by 8.4% during the 3rd quarter. Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Co now owns 29,701 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $13,582,000 after buying an additional 2,300 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Barden Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in Motorola Solutions during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $1,462,000. 84.17% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Motorola Solutions

Motorola Solutions, Inc is a provider of mission-critical communications and analytics solutions for public safety and commercial customers. The company designs, manufactures and supports a range of communications equipment and software aimed at enabling first responders, government agencies and enterprises to coordinate and operate reliably in high-pressure environments. Its offerings emphasize secure, resilient connectivity and situational awareness for organizations that require dependable voice, data and video communications.

Product lines include land mobile radio (LMR) systems and handheld and vehicle-mounted radios used by police, fire and emergency medical services; broadband push-to-talk and LTE-based solutions; command-and-control center software for incident management and records; and video security and analytics systems.