Andreas Gruber Sells 13,467 Shares of Ryanair (NASDAQ:RYAAY) Stock

Ryanair Holdings PLC (NASDAQ:RYAAY) CEO Andreas Gruber sold 13,467 shares of Ryanair stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $26.01, for a total value of $350,276.67. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 20,858 shares in the company, valued at $542,516.58. The trade was a 39.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards.

Ryanair Price Performance

NASDAQ RYAAY traded up $0.53 during trading on Thursday, reaching $57.42. 1,660,166 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,520,157. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a quick ratio of 0.67 and a current ratio of 0.90. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $58.80 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $64.57. The company has a market cap of $29.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.19, a P/E/G ratio of 1.25 and a beta of 1.13. Ryanair Holdings PLC has a 1-year low of $53.14 and a 1-year high of $74.24.

Ryanair (NASDAQ:RYAAY) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, May 18th. The transportation company reported ($0.86) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.95) by $0.09. The company had revenue of $2.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.08 billion. Ryanair had a return on equity of 25.58% and a net margin of 13.95%. As a group, analysts anticipate that Ryanair Holdings PLC will post 4.72 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ryanair

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. raised its position in Ryanair by 645,657.4% in the 4th quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 2,789,672 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $201,386,000 after purchasing an additional 2,789,240 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors raised its position in Ryanair by 9.3% in the 3rd quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 30,738,934 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $1,851,043,000 after purchasing an additional 2,626,911 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors raised its position in Ryanair by 6.6% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 39,929,929 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $2,884,834,000 after purchasing an additional 2,464,742 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its position in Ryanair by 58.0% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 3,895,021 shares of the transportation company’s stock worth $281,182,000 after purchasing an additional 1,429,666 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in Ryanair in the 4th quarter worth approximately $91,970,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 43.66% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

RYAAY has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of Ryanair in a report on Tuesday, January 27th. Citigroup reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Ryanair in a research note on Tuesday. Royal Bank Of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Ryanair in a research note on Tuesday. Zacks Research cut shares of Ryanair from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. Finally, Evercore upgraded shares of Ryanair from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $80.00 target price for the company in a research note on Thursday, March 12th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have issued a Buy rating, three have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $75.67.

Ryanair Company Profile

Ryanair Holdings plc is an Irish low-cost airline group headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Founded in 1984, the company grew into one of Europe’s largest budget carriers by offering point-to-point scheduled passenger services with an emphasis on low fares, high aircraft utilization and rapid turnaround times. Ryanair serves a broad network across Europe and nearby regions, focusing on both intra-European leisure travel and short-haul business routes.

The group primarily operates a single-type fleet based on the Boeing 737 family, supplemented by a mix of in-house and subsidiary airlines that help serve different markets and regulatory environments.