Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE:ANF) Hits New 12-Month High Following Analyst Upgrade

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE:ANF)’s stock price reached a new 52-week high on Wednesday after Telsey Advisory Group raised their price target on the stock from $62.00 to $74.00. Telsey Advisory Group currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Abercrombie & Fitch traded as high as $71.38 and last traded at $70.47, with a volume of 167138 shares. The stock had previously closed at $68.68.

A number of other research firms have also commented on ANF. TheStreet raised Abercrombie & Fitch from a “c” rating to a “b” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of Abercrombie & Fitch from $45.00 to $62.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 24th. UBS Group lifted their target price on shares of Abercrombie & Fitch from $53.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday. StockNews.com raised shares of Abercrombie & Fitch from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded Abercrombie & Fitch from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $18.00 to $51.00 in a report on Friday, August 25th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Abercrombie & Fitch presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $53.29.

Insider Transactions at Abercrombie & Fitch

In other Abercrombie & Fitch news, CFO Scott D. Lipesky sold 25,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $48.58, for a total value of $1,214,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 96,918 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,708,276.44. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other news, CFO Scott D. Lipesky sold 25,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.58, for a total transaction of $1,214,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 96,918 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,708,276.44. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Fran Horowitz sold 60,000 shares of Abercrombie & Fitch stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.79, for a total value of $3,047,400.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 693,913 shares in the company, valued at $35,243,841.27. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 260,544 shares of company stock worth $13,236,817 in the last quarter. 3.77% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Abercrombie & Fitch

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. FMR LLC lifted its position in shares of Abercrombie & Fitch by 12,439.3% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 5,313,894 shares of the apparel retailer’s stock worth $299,544,000 after acquiring an additional 5,271,516 shares in the last quarter. Schonfeld Strategic Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Abercrombie & Fitch by 172.1% in the fourth quarter. Schonfeld Strategic Advisors LLC now owns 1,843,459 shares of the apparel retailer’s stock worth $42,234,000 after buying an additional 1,165,872 shares in the last quarter. Candlestick Capital Management LP boosted its position in shares of Abercrombie & Fitch by 76.9% in the second quarter. Candlestick Capital Management LP now owns 1,563,618 shares of the apparel retailer’s stock valued at $58,917,000 after acquiring an additional 679,544 shares during the period. Millennium Management LLC grew its stake in Abercrombie & Fitch by 149.9% during the second quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 1,121,848 shares of the apparel retailer’s stock valued at $18,982,000 after acquiring an additional 672,933 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Balyasny Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in Abercrombie & Fitch by 48.4% during the 3rd quarter. Balyasny Asset Management LLC now owns 1,811,477 shares of the apparel retailer’s stock worth $28,168,000 after acquiring an additional 590,747 shares during the period.

Abercrombie & Fitch Stock Up 3.2 %

The stock’s fifty day moving average is $58.40 and its two-hundred day moving average is $43.77. The firm has a market cap of $3.57 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.23 and a beta of 1.42. The company has a current ratio of 1.40, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38.

Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE:ANF) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 23rd. The apparel retailer reported $1.10 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.93. The firm had revenue of $935.40 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $844.07 million. Abercrombie & Fitch had a return on equity of 16.69% and a net margin of 2.85%. The company’s revenue was up 16.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted ($0.30) EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Abercrombie & Fitch Co. will post 4.43 earnings per share for the current year.

About Abercrombie & Fitch

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