Legal & General Group Plc Buys Shares of 684,214 Equitable Holdings, Inc. $EQH

Legal & General Group Plc bought a new position in shares of Equitable Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EQH) during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund bought 684,214 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $30,023,000. Legal & General Group Plc owned approximately 0.25% of Equitable as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Johnson Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in Equitable during the third quarter worth about $26,000. Root Financial Partners LLC lifted its position in shares of Equitable by 64.1% during the 1st quarter. Root Financial Partners LLC now owns 888 shares of the company’s stock valued at $33,000 after acquiring an additional 347 shares during the period. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of Equitable during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Covestor Ltd boosted its stake in shares of Equitable by 124.7% during the 4th quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 728 shares of the company’s stock worth $35,000 after acquiring an additional 404 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Caitong International Asset Management Co. Ltd purchased a new stake in shares of Equitable during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $38,000. 92.70% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

EQH has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Zacks Research raised Equitable from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, June 29th. Wolfe Research downgraded Equitable from an “outperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 9th. Evercore reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $66.00 target price on shares of Equitable in a report on Thursday, August 20th. Weiss Ratings downgraded Equitable from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of Equitable from $63.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 8th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have given a Buy rating, two have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Equitable presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $61.75.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Equitable news, CAO William James Iv Eckert sold 6,200 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, June 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $41.83, for a total transaction of $259,346.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer directly owned 9,366 shares in the company, valued at $391,779.78. This represents a 39.83% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, COO Jeffrey J. Hurd sold 14,358 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.11, for a total value of $647,689.38. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 74,748 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,371,882.28. This trade represents a 16.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 114,541 shares of company stock worth $5,357,784. Corporate insiders own 1.00% of the company’s stock.

Equitable Stock Performance

Shares of EQH stock opened at $50.15 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $48.30 and its 200-day simple moving average is $43.58. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.75, a current ratio of 0.15 and a quick ratio of 0.15. Equitable Holdings, Inc. has a 1-year low of $35.19 and a 1-year high of $55.15. The firm has a market cap of $13.69 billion, a P/E ratio of -15.15, a PEG ratio of 0.49 and a beta of 1.09.

Equitable (NYSE:EQH) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The company reported $1.70 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.65 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.84 billion. Equitable had a negative net margin of 8.72% and a positive return on equity of 511.35%. Equitable’s revenue was down 29.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.10 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Equitable Holdings, Inc. will post 7.18 EPS for the current year.

Equitable Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, August 10th. Stockholders of record on Monday, August 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.30 per share. This represents a $1.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.4%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, August 3rd. Equitable’s dividend payout ratio is presently -36.25%.

About Equitable

Equitable Holdings, Inc (NYSE: EQH) is a leading provider of life insurance, annuities and retirement plan services in the United States. Through its insurance subsidiary, AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company, the firm offers a broad range of permanent and term life insurance products designed to help individuals and families manage risk and build wealth. In addition, Equitable provides fixed, variable and indexed annuity solutions to support income planning in retirement, as well as a suite of group retirement and pension plan services for employers and plan sponsors.

The company also maintains an asset management arm that delivers investment strategies across equities, fixed income and alternative asset classes for both retail and institutional clients.