Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE:ANF) Receives Average Recommendation of “Hold” from Analysts

Shares of Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE:ANF) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the seven brokerages that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and three have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month target price among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $122.71.

A number of brokerages have recently commented on ANF. StockNews.com raised Abercrombie & Fitch from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, April 12th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on Abercrombie & Fitch from $81.00 to $103.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price objective on Abercrombie & Fitch from $149.00 to $155.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 6th. Argus lifted their target price on Abercrombie & Fitch from $97.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, April 11th. Finally, UBS Group lifted their target price on Abercrombie & Fitch from $98.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, February 26th.

Abercrombie & Fitch Stock Performance

Abercrombie & Fitch stock opened at $110.36 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a current ratio of 1.59. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $123.25 and a two-hundred day moving average of $96.08. The company has a market capitalization of $5.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.74 and a beta of 1.58. Abercrombie & Fitch has a fifty-two week low of $21.74 and a fifty-two week high of $140.28.

Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE:ANF) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, March 6th. The apparel retailer reported $2.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.83 by $0.14. The company had revenue of $1.45 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.43 billion. Abercrombie & Fitch had a return on equity of 38.80% and a net margin of 7.67%. Abercrombie & Fitch’s revenue was up 21.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.81 earnings per share. On average, analysts anticipate that Abercrombie & Fitch will post 7.48 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Abercrombie & Fitch news, CFO Scott D. Lipesky sold 35,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $127.95, for a total transaction of $4,478,250.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 88,558 shares in the company, valued at $11,330,996.10. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, CFO Scott D. Lipesky sold 35,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $127.95, for a total value of $4,478,250.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 88,558 shares in the company, valued at $11,330,996.10. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Kristin A. Scott sold 120,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.15, for a total value of $15,138,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 38,208 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,819,939.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 158,786 shares of company stock worth $20,096,812 over the last quarter. 3.77% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. First Trust Direct Indexing L.P. bought a new stake in Abercrombie & Fitch in the first quarter valued at about $203,000. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Abercrombie & Fitch by 4.8% in the first quarter. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC now owns 15,388 shares of the apparel retailer’s stock valued at $1,929,000 after buying an additional 700 shares during the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC bought a new stake in Abercrombie & Fitch in the first quarter valued at about $120,000. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in Abercrombie & Fitch in the first quarter valued at about $306,000. Finally, Hennessy Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in Abercrombie & Fitch by 14.1% in the first quarter. Hennessy Advisors Inc. now owns 425,500 shares of the apparel retailer’s stock valued at $53,328,000 after buying an additional 52,600 shares during the last quarter.

Abercrombie & Fitch Company Profile

Abercrombie & Fitch Co, through its subsidiaries, operates as an omnichannel retailer in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, the Asia-Pacific, Canada, and internationally. The company offers an assortment of apparel, personal care products, and accessories for men, women, and kids under the Abercrombie & Fitch, abercrombie kids, Hollister, and Gilly Hicks brands.