With 1.54 million shares changed hands, the volume of the stock remained lighter than its average volume of 2.03 million shares. During the session, the Confectioners company that operates in wider Consumer Defensive sector, reached to the highest price of $174.2269 whereas the lowest price it dropped to was $170.59. The 52-week range on HSY shows that it touched its highest point at $211.92 and its lowest point at $140.13 during that stretch. It currently has a 1-year price target of $156.18. With its current market cap of 34.80 billion, HSY has annualized dividend of $5.48 while the current yield stands at 3.19%. HSY paid its most recent dividend on 1739491200, while the ex-dividend date for that was 1739491200. Beta for the stock currently stands at 0.27.
Price Performance and Earnings:
Stock performance is one of the indicators that investors use to determine whether they will profit from a stock. The price performance of HSY was down-trending over the past week, with a drop of -4.48%, but this was up by 8.64% over a month. Three-month performance dropped to -11.21% while six-month performance fell -15.23%. The stock lost -13.61% in the past year, while it has gained 1.53% so far this year. A look at the trailing 12-month EPS for HSY yields 10.90 with Next year EPS estimates of 6.59. For the next quarter, that number is 1.99. This implies an EPS growth rate of -34.17% for this year and 6.79% for next year. EPS is expected to decline by -7.12% annually over the next five years; however, over the past five years, the company experienced an annual growth rate of 14.88%.
Float and Shares Shorts:
At present, 147.77 million HSY shares are outstanding with a float of 147.09 million shares on hand for trading. On 2025-02-28, short shares totaled 7.91 million, which was 391.00002 higher than short shares on 1738281600. In addition to Ms. Michele Gross Buck as the firm’s Chairman, President & CEO, Mr. Steven E. Voskuil serves as its Senior VP & CFO.
Institutional Ownership:
Through their ownership of 0.86719 of HSY’s outstanding shares, institutional investors have minority control over the company.
An Overview of Recent Financials:
Understanding a company as a customer does not mean you will understand it as an investor. The wise investor uses quantitative research to analyze metrics such as revenue, net income, and earnings. In its fiscal quarter reported on 2024-12-31, HSY reported revenue of $2887540000.0 and operating income of $935610000.0. The EBITDA in the recently reported quarter was $1047467000.0 and diluted EPS was $nan.
Analysts Ratings:
Reading analyst opinions is an effective way to decide where to invest, and there are several opinions available for HSY since 18 analysts follow the stock currently. There are 10 analysts who recommend BUY ratings, while 0 suggest SELL ratings. Of the remaining analysts, 8 believe that the stock is worth HOLDING, 0 give it an OVERWEIGHT rating, and 0 thinks that it’s UNDERWEIGHT. In the same way, a target price assigned to a stock can also reveal much about its potential. With HSY analysts setting a high price target of 211.34 and a low target of 120.0, the average target price over the next 12 months is 161.8936. Based on these targets, HSY could surge 22.91% to reach the target high and fall by -30.21% to reach the target low. Reaching the average price target will result in a decline of -5.84% from current levels.
EPS: Estimates vs Actual
It is also common to use earnings estimates to evaluate a firm’s growth potential and to determine trading strategy. Analysts have provided yearly estimates in a range of $9.14827 being high and $8.92855 being low. For HSY, this leads to a yearly average estimate of $9.0484. Based on analyst estimates, the high estimate for the next quarter is $1.44 and the low estimate is $1.04. The average estimate for the next quarter is thus $1.23.
