NorthWestern (NASDAQ:NWE) was downgraded by analysts at Wells Fargo & Company from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating in a report issued on Monday, The Fly reports. They presently have a $59.00 price objective on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company’s price target indicates a potential upside of 4.46% from the company’s current price.
Several other equities analysts also recently issued reports on the stock. Zacks Investment Research raised shares of NorthWestern from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 24th. Barclays lowered shares of NorthWestern from an “equal weight” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $71.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Tuesday, November 16th. Finally, KeyCorp upped their price target on shares of NorthWestern from $70.00 to $71.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 19th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, NorthWestern currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $65.83.
Shares of NorthWestern stock opened at $56.48 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $2.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.26, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.87 and a beta of 0.48. NorthWestern has a 52-week low of $53.16 and a 52-week high of $70.80. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $57.06 and its 200-day simple moving average is $60.44. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 0.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.10.
NorthWestern (NASDAQ:NWE) last released its quarterly earnings data on Saturday, October 23rd. The company reported $0.65 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.60 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $325.96 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $293.90 million. NorthWestern had a net margin of 14.13% and a return on equity of 9.29%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.59 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that NorthWestern will post 3.53 EPS for the current year.
In other news, CEO Robert C. Rowe sold 3,000 shares of NorthWestern stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.87, for a total value of $185,610.00. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 1.17% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.
Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. BlackRock Inc. raised its position in shares of NorthWestern by 5.8% in the third quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 8,155,555 shares of the company’s stock valued at $467,314,000 after purchasing an additional 449,420 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of NorthWestern by 1.4% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,213,585 shares of the company’s stock valued at $313,962,000 after purchasing an additional 71,934 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its position in shares of NorthWestern by 68.9% in the second quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 1,923,985 shares of the company’s stock valued at $115,862,000 after purchasing an additional 784,886 shares during the period. Victory Capital Management Inc. raised its position in shares of NorthWestern by 33.3% in the second quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,687,382 shares of the company’s stock valued at $101,615,000 after purchasing an additional 421,935 shares during the period. Finally, State Street Corp raised its position in shares of NorthWestern by 2.2% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,593,155 shares of the company’s stock valued at $95,940,000 after purchasing an additional 33,580 shares during the period. 90.80% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
About NorthWestern
NorthWestern Corp. engages in generating and distributing electricity and natural gas. It operates through the following segments: Electric Utility Operations, Natural Gas Operations, and All Other. The Electric Utility Operations segment includes generation, transmission, and distribution of electric utility business as a vertically integrated generation transmission and distribution utility.