It is Poised to be a Bull Market for Nielsen Holdings plc (NLSN)

Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) stock jumped 21.18% on Friday to $27.52 against a previous-day closing price of $22.71. With 33.07 million shares changed hands, the volume of the stock remained heavier than its average volume of 2.81 million shares. During the session, the Consulting Services company that operates in wider Industrials sector, reached to the highest price of $27.59 whereas the lowest price it dropped to was $27.50. The 52-week range on NLSN shows that it touched its highest point at $27.79 and its lowest point at $16.02 during that stretch. It currently has a 1-year price target of $27.14. With its current market cap of 9.87 billion, NLSN has annualized dividend of $0.24 while the current yield stands at 0.87%. Beta for the stock currently stands at 1.33.

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 NLSN was up-trending over the past week, with a rise of 14.71%, but this was up by 17.86% over a month. Three-month performance surged to 7.08% while six-month performance rose 51.46%. The stock gained 19.97% in the past year, while it has gained 34.18% so far this year. A look at the trailing 12-month EPS for NLSN yields 1.58 with Next year EPS estimates of 1.96. For the next quarter, that number is 0.48. This implies an EPS growth rate of 187.10% for this year and 4.20% for next year. EPS is expected to grow by 5.30% annually over the next five years; however, over the past five years, the company experienced an annual growth rate of 1.90%.

Float and Shares Shorts:

At present, 359.78 million NLSN shares are outstanding with a float of 358.48 million shares on hand for trading. On Jul 14, 2022, short shares totaled 17.88 million, which was 4.97% higher than short shares on Jun 14, 2022. In addition to Mr. David W. Kenny as the firm’s CEO & Exec. Director, Ms. Linda K. Zukauckas serves as its Chief Financial Officer.

Institutional Ownership:

Through their ownership of 114.78% of NLSN’s outstanding shares, institutional investors have majority control over the company. Other institutions hold 74.23% of NLSN, in contrast to 40.41% held by mutual funds. Shares owned by individuals account for 38.94%. As the largest shareholder in NLSN with 27.30% of the stake, The WindAcre Partnership LLC holds 98,186,880 shares worth 98,186,880. A second-largest stockholder of NLSN, The Vanguard Group, Inc., holds 41,949,349 shares, controlling over 11.66% of the firm’s shares. Fidelity Management & Research Co is the third largest shareholder in NLSN, holding 20,763,794 shares or 5.77% stake. With a 3.51% stake in NLSN, the Fidelity Balanced Fund is the largest stakeholder. A total of 12,630,085 shares are owned by the mutual fund manager. The Vanguard 500 Index Fund, which owns about 2.21% of NLSN stock, is the second-largest Mutual Fund holder. It holds 7,954,399 shares valued at 184.7 million. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index holds 2.06% of the stake in NLSN, owning 7,412,806 shares worth 172.13 million.

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 Jun 29, 2022, NLSN reported revenue of $882.00M and operating income of $215.00M. Over the past year, revenue came in at $3.54B while operating income stood at $810.00M. It generated $111.00M net income for the quarter, which came to $530.00M over the last twelve months. The EBITDA in the recently reported quarter was $341.00M and diluted EPS was $0.31. EBITDA for the full year was $1.36B.

Analysts Ratings:

Reading analyst opinions is an effective way to decide where to invest, and there are several opinions available for NLSN since 6 analysts follow the stock currently. There are 1 analysts who recommend BUY ratings, while 0 suggest SELL ratings. Of the remaining analysts, 5 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 NLSN analysts setting a high price target of $28.00 and a low target of $25.00, the average target price over the next 12 months is $27.40. Based on these targets, NLSN could surge 1.74% to reach the target high and fall by -9.16% to reach the target low. Reaching the average price target will result in a decline of -0.44% 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. NLSN will report FY 2022 earnings on 03/02/2023. Analysts have provided yearly estimates in a range of $1.92 being high and $1.87 being low. For NLSN, this leads to a yearly average estimate of $1.89. The earnings surprise of a firm occurs when the actual results change from the consensus earnings estimate. Nielsen Holdings plc surprised analysts by $0.03 when it reported $0.46 EPS against a consensus estimate of $0.43. The surprise factor in the prior quarter was $0.04. Based on analyst estimates, the high estimate for the next quarter is $0.51 and the low estimate is $0.46. The average estimate for the next quarter is thus $0.49.

Summary of Insider Activity:

Insiders traded NLSN stock several times over the past three months with 16 Buys and 0 Sells. In these transactions, 4,056 shares were bought while 0 shares were sold. The number of buy transactions has increased to 91 while that of sell transactions has risen to 31 over the past year. The total number of shares bought during that period was 62,273,421 while 280,753 shares were sold.