May 17, 2023 – Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV made headlines today as it announced its decision to decrease its position in Essential Utilities, Inc. (NYSE:WTRG) by 7.0% during the fourth quarter of last year. According to the recent Form 13F filing with the SEC, Mercer Global Advisors sold off 3,103 shares during the period, leaving them with a total of 41,013 shares in the company.
Despite this move by Mercer Global Advisors, it seems that other analysts are bullish on Essential Utilities. Just last March 16th, Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and gave the stock a $54.00 price target. UBS Group also raised its rating from “neutral” to “buy” and increased their price target from $54.00 to $55.00 in February earlier this year.
In another report released on May 12th by StockNews.com, Essential Utilities was upgraded from “sell” to “hold.” Meanwhile, Wells Fargo & Company lowered its target price on WTRG from $53.00 to $52.00 but still maintained an “overweight” rating for the stock in a research note on February 28th.
Looking at Bloomberg’s analysis of Wall Street analysts’ ratings and price targets for WTRG, it seems that there are two hold ratings and seven buy ratings for the stock as of now. The average price target is currently set at $52.38.
Shares of WTRG opened today at $41.13 with a market capitalization of $10.87 billion and a P/E ratio of 23.77%. It has a beta of 0.79 as well as a quick ratio and current ratio of 0.52 and 0.63 respectively while carrying a debt-to-equity ratio of 1:18.
Further analysis reveals that Essential Utilities has a 50-day moving average of $42.91 and a 200-day moving average of $45.35. Its twelve-month low stands at $38.50 while its all-time high was $52.42.
It remains to be seen whether Mercer Global Advisors’ recent decision will affect the prospects of WTRG in the long run or if it’ll have any effect at all. Nevertheless, it’s clear that there are those who believe that Essential Utilities still holds good value for shareholders going forward.
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Essential Utilities: Institutional Investors Boost Holdings Despite Earnings Setback
Essential Utilities, a water and wastewater company based in Pennsylvania, has been making moves recently. According to reports from May 17th, several institutional investors have made changes to their positions within the company. American Century Companies Inc. boosted its position by 15.7%, owning over 11 thousand shares of Essential Utilities’ stock valued at over $600k after purchasing an additional 1,602 shares during the period. Natixis Advisors L.P. and Allianz Asset Management GmbH also boosted their holdings by 80.7% and almost 4,000%, respectively. These institutional investors now own 69.96% of the company’s stock.
In other news, Essential Utilities CEO Chris Franklin purchased almost $1.5 million worth of Essential Utilities stock in March 2013 resulting in him directly owning over 37k shares worth approximately $1.5 million.
However, Essential Utilities suffered a setback on May 8th when it released its earnings results revealing that they had missed the consensus estimate of $0.74 EPS with only a contribution of $0.72 EPS for the quarter this year; a drop from last year’s $0.76 EPS during the same period.
Despite this setback, predictions for Essential Utilities are still looking positive with several analysts weighing in on WTRG shares over recent months and rating it as “Overweight” along with having an average rating of ‘Moderate Buy.’ Alongside this promising news is the announcement that Essential Utilities will pay out a quarterly dividend for shareholders of record on Friday, May 12th which comes to $0.287 per share on an annualized basis and gives shareholders a healthy dividend yield of just under 3%.
