California Public Employees Retirement System Sells 3,483 Shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)

California Public Employees Retirement System lowered its stake in shares of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL) by 0.8% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 459,896 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 3,483 shares during the period. California Public Employees Retirement System owned approximately 0.16% of Ecolab worth $91,220,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Ecolab by 1.7% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 22,877,417 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $3,875,434,000 after buying an additional 387,545 shares in the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp lifted its position in shares of Ecolab by 4.7% during the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 2,774,960 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $470,078,000 after purchasing an additional 123,572 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. boosted its holdings in Ecolab by 1.7% during the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,555,758 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $432,945,000 after purchasing an additional 41,545 shares during the last quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB grew its position in Ecolab by 3.9% in the 3rd quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 2,294,838 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $391,224,000 after purchasing an additional 85,985 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Brown Advisory Inc. increased its stake in Ecolab by 2.3% in the 3rd quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. now owns 2,173,210 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $368,142,000 after buying an additional 48,375 shares during the last quarter. 74.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have commented on ECL. UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of Ecolab from $211.00 to $227.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded Ecolab from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $200.00 to $220.00 in a research note on Wednesday, February 14th. Robert W. Baird raised their target price on Ecolab from $184.00 to $232.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 14th. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on Ecolab from $230.00 to $240.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 27th. Finally, Wolfe Research initiated coverage on Ecolab in a report on Friday, March 1st. They issued a “peer perform” rating for the company. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $230.47.

Ecolab Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of Ecolab stock opened at $220.78 on Thursday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $223.71 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $200.43. The firm has a market cap of $63.12 billion, a PE ratio of 46.09, a PEG ratio of 2.57 and a beta of 1.10. Ecolab Inc. has a 1 year low of $156.72 and a 1 year high of $231.86. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.94, a current ratio of 1.30 and a quick ratio of 0.95.

Ecolab (NYSE:ECL) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, February 13th. The basic materials company reported $1.55 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.54 by $0.01. Ecolab had a net margin of 8.96% and a return on equity of 19.36%. The company had revenue of $3.94 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.92 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.27 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts expect that Ecolab Inc. will post 6.42 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ecolab Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 19th were paid a $0.57 dividend. This represents a $2.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.03%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 18th. Ecolab’s dividend payout ratio is currently 47.60%.

Ecolab Company Profile

Ecolab Inc provides water, hygiene, and infection prevention solutions and services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Global Industrial; Global Institutional & Specialty; and Global Healthcare & Life Sciences. The Global Industrial segment offers water treatment and process applications, and cleaning and sanitizing solutions to manufacturing, food and beverage processing, transportation, chemical, metals and mining, power generation, pulp and paper, commercial laundry, petroleum, refining, and petrochemical industries.