MetLife Investment Management LLC Grows Stake in Veralto Co. (NYSE:VLTO)

MetLife Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Veralto Co. (NYSE:VLTO) by 7.9% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 69,306 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 5,070 shares during the quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Veralto were worth $7,753,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Veralto in the third quarter valued at about $25,000. Goodman Advisory Group LLC purchased a new stake in Veralto during the 2nd quarter valued at about $26,000. Fairscale Capital LLC acquired a new stake in Veralto in the 2nd quarter valued at about $30,000. Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. lifted its stake in Veralto by 11,100.0% in the 2nd quarter. Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. now owns 336 shares of the company’s stock worth $32,000 after purchasing an additional 333 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Raleigh Capital Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Veralto by 692.3% during the 3rd quarter. Raleigh Capital Management Inc. now owns 309 shares of the company’s stock worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 270 shares during the last quarter. 91.28% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

VLTO has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on Veralto from $117.00 to $119.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 16th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on shares of Veralto from $117.00 to $119.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on shares of Veralto from $108.00 to $111.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, October 25th. Finally, UBS Group began coverage on shares of Veralto in a research note on Tuesday, August 13th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $118.00 price target for the company. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $108.27.

Veralto Stock Performance

Shares of VLTO stock opened at $108.22 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $26.76 billion and a P/E ratio of 33.40. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $108.00 and a 200 day moving average price of $104.81. The company has a current ratio of 2.13, a quick ratio of 1.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35. Veralto Co. has a 12 month low of $73.91 and a 12 month high of $115.00.

Veralto (NYSE:VLTO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 23rd. The company reported $0.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.85 by $0.04. Veralto had a return on equity of 52.85% and a net margin of 15.69%. The business had revenue of $1.31 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.30 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.75 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 4.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Veralto Co. will post 3.48 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Veralto Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 31st. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 27th were issued a dividend of $0.09 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, September 27th. This represents a $0.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.33%. Veralto’s payout ratio is currently 11.11%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Jennifer Honeycutt sold 13,190 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $110.15, for a total value of $1,452,878.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 138,546 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $15,260,841.90. This represents a 8.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Surekha Trivedi sold 752 shares of Veralto stock in a transaction on Friday, November 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $102.91, for a total transaction of $77,388.32. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 10,413 shares in the company, valued at $1,071,601.83. The trade was a 6.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 15,448 shares of company stock worth $1,698,675. Corporate insiders own 0.31% of the company’s stock.

About Veralto

Veralto Corporation provides water analytics, water treatment, marking and coding, and packaging and color services worldwide. It operates through two segments, Water Quality (WQ) and Product Quality & Innovation (PQI). The WQ segment offers precision instrumentation and water treatment technologies to measure, analyze, and treat water in residential, commercial, municipal, industrial, research, and natural resource applications through the Hach, Trojan Technologies, and ChemTreat brands.