Ingredion (NYSE:INGR) Stock Rating Upgraded by Wall Street Zen

Ingredion (NYSE:INGR) was upgraded by research analysts at Wall Street Zen from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report released on Sunday.

INGR has been the subject of several other reports. UBS Group set a $155.00 target price on Ingredion in a research note on Tuesday, April 22nd. Oppenheimer reduced their target price on Ingredion from $167.00 to $155.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 22nd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $152.20.

Ingredion Stock Up 0.2%

Shares of NYSE:INGR opened at $138.26 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a quick ratio of 1.69 and a current ratio of 2.62. Ingredion has a 1 year low of $111.54 and a 1 year high of $155.44. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.24, a PEG ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 0.73. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $133.90 and a 200-day simple moving average of $134.93.

Ingredion (NYSE:INGR) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 6th. The company reported $2.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.44 by $0.53. The firm had revenue of $1.81 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.84 billion. Ingredion had a return on equity of 18.62% and a net margin of 8.71%. Ingredion’s quarterly revenue was down 3.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.08 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Ingredion will post 11.14 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Ingredion news, SVP Larry Fernandes sold 2,400 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $135.82, for a total value of $325,968.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 31,996 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,345,696.72. This trade represents a 6.98% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 2.30% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of INGR. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Ingredion during the fourth quarter valued at $96,012,000. Assetmark Inc. boosted its stake in Ingredion by 38,341.7% during the fourth quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 509,352 shares of the company’s stock valued at $70,067,000 after buying an additional 508,027 shares in the last quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec boosted its stake in Ingredion by 327.2% during the fourth quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec now owns 531,413 shares of the company’s stock valued at $73,101,000 after buying an additional 407,027 shares in the last quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH boosted its stake in Ingredion by 42.9% during the first quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 1,204,347 shares of the company’s stock valued at $162,840,000 after buying an additional 361,584 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Millennium Management LLC boosted its stake in Ingredion by 1,093.5% during the first quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 365,693 shares of the company’s stock valued at $49,445,000 after buying an additional 335,052 shares in the last quarter. 85.27% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Ingredion

Ingredion Incorporated, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells sweeteners, starches, nutrition ingredients, and biomaterial solutions derived from wet milling and processing corn, and other starch-based materials to a range of industries in North America, South America, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.