Wall Street Zen Downgrades ADT (NYSE:ADT) to Buy

Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of ADT (NYSE:ADT) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note released on Sunday.

A number of other brokerages also recently issued reports on ADT. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on ADT from $9.00 to $9.50 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday, July 28th. Citigroup upped their target price on ADT from $9.00 to $10.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 26th. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded ADT to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 12th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have given a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, ADT has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $9.34.

ADT Stock Down 0.2%

Shares of NYSE:ADT opened at $8.60 on Friday. ADT has a 1 year low of $6.68 and a 1 year high of $8.89. The company has a market cap of $7.15 billion, a PE ratio of 13.03 and a beta of 1.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.84, a current ratio of 0.46 and a quick ratio of 0.37. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $8.55 and its 200 day moving average is $8.23.

ADT (NYSE:ADT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, July 24th. The security and automation business reported $0.23 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.19 by $0.04. ADT had a return on equity of 18.58% and a net margin of 12.30%.The company had revenue of $1.29 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.28 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.17 EPS. ADT’s revenue was up 6.8% compared to the same quarter last year. ADT has set its FY 2025 guidance at 0.810-0.890 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that ADT will post 0.7 EPS for the current year.

ADT Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, September 11th will be given a dividend of $0.055 per share. This represents a $0.22 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.6%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, September 11th. ADT’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 33.33%.

Insider Transactions at ADT

In related news, major shareholder Apollo Management Holdings Gp, sold 71,000,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $8.31, for a total value of $590,010,000.00. Following the sale, the insider owned 112,650,366 shares in the company, valued at $936,124,541.46. This represents a 38.66% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 2.70% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of ADT

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Osaic Holdings Inc. grew its stake in shares of ADT by 39.9% in the 2nd quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. now owns 4,351 shares of the security and automation business’s stock worth $37,000 after buying an additional 1,240 shares during the last quarter. American Trust purchased a new stake in shares of ADT in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $151,000. Squarepoint Ops LLC purchased a new stake in shares of ADT in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $5,837,000. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans purchased a new stake in shares of ADT in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $1,317,000. Finally, Neuberger Berman Group LLC grew its stake in shares of ADT by 29.1% in the 2nd quarter. Neuberger Berman Group LLC now owns 135,617 shares of the security and automation business’s stock worth $1,149,000 after buying an additional 30,608 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.22% of the company’s stock.

ADT Company Profile

ADT Inc provides security, interactive, and smart home solutions to residential and small business customers in the United States. It operates through two segments, Consumer and Small Business, and Solar. The company provides burglar and life safety alarms, smart security cameras, smart home automation systems, and video surveillance systems.