Does The Clorox Company (CLX) offer a good opportunity for investors?

The Clorox Company (NYSE: CLX) stock jumped 1.43% on Thursday to $149.45 against a previous-day closing price of $147.35. With 1.08 million shares changed hands, the volume of the stock remained lighter than its average volume of 1.17 million shares. During the session, the Household & Personal Products company that operates in wider Consumer Defensive sector, reached to the highest price of $149.59 whereas the lowest price it dropped to was $147.55. The 52-week range on CLX shows that it touched its highest point at $178.21 and its lowest point at $124.58 during that stretch. It currently has a 1-year price target of $157.82. With its current market cap of 18.63 billion, CLX has annualized dividend of $4.80 while the current yield stands at 3.21%. 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 CLX was down-trending over the past week, with a drop of -4.03%, but this was down by -5.18% over a month. Three-month performance dropped to -2.92% while six-month performance fell -4.41%. The stock gained 3.78% in the past year, while it has gained 6.50% so far this year. A look at the trailing 12-month EPS for CLX yields 1.17 with Next year EPS estimates of 6.57. For the next quarter, that number is 1.40. This implies an EPS growth rate of -67.80% for this year and 11.38% for next year. EPS is expected to grow by 10.39% annually over the next five years; however, over the past five years, the company experienced an annual growth rate of -26.60%.

Float and Shares Shorts:

At present, 123.82 million CLX shares are outstanding with a float of 123.41 million shares on hand for trading. On Aug 30, 2023, short shares totaled 3.86 million, which was 3.12% higher than short shares on Jul 30, 2023. In addition to Ms. Linda Rendle as the firm’s CEO & Director, Mr. Kevin B. Jacobsen serves as its Exec. VP & CFO.

Institutional Ownership:

Through their ownership of 82.31% of CLX’s outstanding shares, institutional investors have majority control over the company. Other institutions hold 50.81% of CLX, in contrast to 41.98% held by mutual funds. Shares owned by individuals account for 39.22%. As the largest shareholder in CLX with 11.94% of the stake, The Vanguard Group, Inc. holds 14,760,044 shares worth 14,760,044. A second-largest stockholder of CLX, SSgA Funds Management, Inc., holds 8,019,303 shares, controlling over 6.49% of the firm’s shares. BlackRock Fund Advisors is the third largest shareholder in CLX, holding 6,681,837 shares or 5.41% stake. With a 3.11% stake in CLX, the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF is the largest stakeholder. A total of 3,847,999 shares are owned by the mutual fund manager. The Vanguard 500 Index Fund, which owns about 2.40% of CLX stock, is the second-largest Mutual Fund holder. It holds 2,960,169 shares valued at 448.41 million. Vanguard Mid Cap Index Fund holds 2.31% of the stake in CLX, owning 2,861,168 shares worth 433.41 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, 2023, CLX reported revenue of $1.80B and operating income of $183.00M. The EBITDA in the recently reported quarter was $166.00M and diluted EPS was $0.81.

Analysts Ratings:

Reading analyst opinions is an effective way to decide where to invest, and there are several opinions available for CLX since 0 analysts follow the stock currently. In the same way, a target price assigned to a stock can also reveal much about its potential. With CLX analysts setting a high price target of $185.00 and a low target of $127.00, the average target price over the next 12 months is $157.35. Based on these targets, CLX could surge 23.79% to reach the target high and fall by -15.02% to reach the target low. Reaching the average price target will result in a growth of 5.29% 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.

Summary of Insider Activity:

Insiders traded CLX stock several times over the past three months with 1 Buys and 1 Sells. In these transactions, 80 shares were bought while 605 shares were sold. The number of buy transactions has increased to 13 while that of sell transactions has risen to 13 over the past year. The total number of shares bought during that period was 34,473 while 10,303 shares were sold.